Peter Thiel Claims He’s Not Trying to Destroy Gawker Archives: ‘Preserve Them, Study Them’
A sweeping new profile from the New York Times on billionaire Silicon Valley investor Peter Thiel gauges his thoughts on President Donald Trump’s administration, Facebook’s mistakes in the 2016 election, and the fate of Gawker.
Thiel, who threw his vehement support behind Trump during the 2016 campaign, spoke at the Republican National Convention and even served on the president’s transition team, told the Times the two hadn’t spoken in months..
“We don’t talk that often,” Thiel said, before adding, “I can get access anytime I want.”
Thiel, who hilariously said in his RNC speech that Trump would end “fake culture wars,” noted that the administration has had some shortcomings.
“There are all these ways that things have fallen short,” he said, though he does not regret backing Trump. “It’s still better than Hillary Clinton or the Republican zombies.”
Thiel also discussed Gawker, the media company that was gutted in a lawsuit by wrestler Hulk Hogan that Thiel secretly funded, because of a longstanding grudge against the outlet.
“Gawker was trying to cut people down to size for not conforming,” Thiel told the Times. “The ability to speak and not have every word you say get distorted, to have wrong ideas and then be able to correct them — these notions were powerfully undercut by Gawker.”
The billionaire, who is still pursuing archives of the defunct outlet in court, leading many to believe he is seeking to purge it from the internet, pushed back on those characterizations.
“Terry Bollea, a.k.a. Hulk Hogan, is still owed some money from the Gawker sale, and that is what I am trying to get,” Thiel said. “I don’t want the archives. I don’t think it makes sense to destroy them. Preserve them, study them instead.”
As expected Thiel’s remarks didn’t go over so well with former Gawker employees, including former editor Tom Scocca who called out the Times for allowing him to “peddle his false account of why he destroyed Gawker”:
Peter Thiel has an express personal policy of lying in his public statements whenever it suits his interests, and anyone who interviews him needs to ask him point-blank if he’s lying about whatever claims he makes. pic.twitter.com/FTcomvbvql
— Tom Scocca (@tomscocca) March 7, 2018
This is why it was so vile for @nytopinion to give him a platform to peddle his false account of why he destroyed Gawker. Thiel himself doesn’t even tell that version of the story anymore!
— Tom Scocca (@tomscocca) March 7, 2018
[image via screengrab]
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