Peter Thiel, the controversial billionaire tech founder and investor, has used his fortune to encourage kids to skip college, to back a lawsuit that bankrupted Gawker Media and to donate to the presidential campaign of Donald Trump when many in Silicon Valley were strongly opposed to him.
Now, Thiel's exit from the board of Meta Platforms (neé Facebook) could free up more time for Thiel to double down on his political efforts and position himself as a new kingmaker in the Republican world...
"There's two levels to analyze this on," said David Karpf, a political scientist at George Washington University. "The first is, Peter Thiel now has a lot more time to spend his money on electing Republicans in the fall; what's that going to mean for election outcomes? The other is, Peter Thiel, prominent Trump backer, has decided that his priority, instead of being a board member at Meta, is keeping the GOP in the clutches of Trump."