Tech billionaire and one of the oldest members on the board of Meta, the parent company of Facebook, Peter Thiel is set to step down from the board of the company after 17 years.
This is according to an announcement made by the company earlier in the week, as reports suggest he is stepping down to focus on backing Donald Trump’s allies in the November midterm elections.
Thiel was one of the earliest investors of Facebook after he invested $500,000 in the tech-giant in 2004 and has been on the board of directors since 2005 a year after the company was founded. According to the statement made by Meta, the billionaire had decided not to be re-elected to the board.
Meanwhile, there are many speculations making the rounds as to what his reasons could be for stepping down from the board. It is worth noting that Thiel before being a member of the Facebook board of directors, is a venture capitalist, and some of his other investments are in opposition to Meta and its subsidiary companies.
His company, Founders Fund contributed more than $10 million to Boldend, a cyber warfare startup that developed tools for hacking WhatsApp, a messaging platform owned by Meta. He also invested in Rumble, a video hating platform that advertises itself as being immune to “cancel culture”.
Another major possibility is his strong support for Donald Trump and his allies. He has shown this in various ways, by donating to campaigns for Trump supported candidates and hosting fundraisers for the same goal.
Recall that in 2021, Trump was banned from Facebook and his relationship with the company had gone bad making his position on the board contentious.
Moreso, former president Trump stated in his 2022 book “Our Journey Together” that Zuckerberg came to the White House to curry favour from him. And the former president is even set to launch an alternative social media platform called Truth Social on the 21st of this month.
Despite these speculations, however, Zuckerberg and Thiel only had nice words to say about each other in their statements addressing Thiel’s intention to leave the company. Mark Zuckerberg, CEO of Meta had this to say about Peter Thiel;
“Peter has been a valuable member of our board and I’m deeply grateful for everything he has done for our company — from believing in us when few others would, to teaching me so many lessons about business, economics, and the world.”
Similarly, Thiel in a statement released by Meta described Zuckerberg as “one of the great entrepreneurs of our time” whose “talents will serve Meta well as he leads the company into a new era.”
Peter Thiel, who is currently worth $8.28 billion, is set to step down at Meta’s 2022 Annual Meeting of stockholders.
