Peter Thiel

Peter Andreas Thiel (; born 11 October 1967) is an American entrepreneur, venture capitalist, thinker and political activist. A co-founder of PayPal, Palantir Technologies, and Founders Fund, he was the first outside investor in Facebook. According to ''Forbes'', as of May 2025, Thiel's estimated net worth stood at US$20.8 billion, making him the 103rd-richest individual in the world.

Born in Germany, Thiel followed his parents to the US at the age of one, in 1971 his family moved to South Africa then South West Africa, before moving back to the US in 1977. After graduating from Stanford, he worked as a clerk, a securities lawyer, a speechwriter, and subsequently a derivatives trader at Credit Suisse. He founded Thiel Capital Management in 1996 and co-founded PayPal with Max Levchin and Luke Nosek in 1998. He was the chief executive officer of PayPal until its sale to eBay in 2002 for $1.5 billion.

Following PayPal, Thiel founded Clarium Capital, a global macro hedge fund based in San Francisco. In 2003, he launched Palantir Technologies, a big data analysis company, and has been its chairman since its inception. In 2005, Thiel launched Founders Fund with PayPal partners Ken Howery and Luke Nosek. Thiel became Facebook's first outside investor when he acquired a 10.2% stake in the company for $500,000 in August 2004. He co-founded Valar Ventures in 2010, co-founded Mithril Capital, was investment committee chair, in 2012, and was a part-time partner at Y Combinator from 2015 to 2017. He was granted New Zealand citizenship in 2011, which later became controversial in New Zealand.

A conservative libertarian, Thiel has made substantial donations to American right-wing figures and causes. Through the Thiel Foundation, Thiel governs the grant-making bodies Breakout Labs and Thiel Fellowship. In 2016, when the ''Bollea v. Gawker'' lawsuit ended up with Gawker losing the case, Thiel confirmed that he had funded Hulk Hogan. Gawker had previously outed Thiel as gay. Provided by Wikipedia