Thiel Makes a Bid for Gawker.com, a Site He Helped Bankrupt
Peter Thiel, the technology billionaire, submitted a bid this week to purchase Gawker.com, the remaining unsold property from the Gawker Media gossip empire that was nearly destroyed in 2016 by a lawsuit largely bankrolled by Mr. Thiel.
If approved, the acquisition could be the last step in a yearslong effort by Mr. Thiel to finish an independent journalism outfit that angered him in 2007 when it reported, without his permission, that he is gay, a fact widely known at the time in Silicon Valley.
Gawker.com has received other offers, and it is not clear if Mr. Thiel, a co-founder of PayPal and an early investor in Facebook, will prevail. A winning bid is expected to be announced in the coming weeks, if representatives of Gawker.com do not take the site off the market.
Previously: Hulk Hogan's Sex Tape and a Tech Billionaire's Revenge on Gawker
Gawker Files for Chapter 11; Won't Pay Hulk Hogan and Peter Thiel
Peter Thiel Wants to Buy Gawker!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 15 2018, @06:39AM (2 children)
So this is definitely nothing to do with getting a well known brand for pennies on the dollar...
(Score: 1, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 15 2018, @06:42AM
Ha! sorry to respond to myself but
sucked them dry them bring them back as a slave! Ha! no vampire jokes there...
(Score: 4, Interesting) by takyon on Monday January 15 2018, @06:48AM
It was brand built on its "journalists", who have already scattered into the wind and who will react very negatively to Thiel taking over.
Sure, he'll get a site near the bottom of the top 10,000 Alexa ranks, but I doubt Thiel would try to make it profitable or build a new platform of journalists there. Maybe use it to aggregate some stories that Gawker would have never run or otherwise dance/piss on its grave by using it as a personal blog.
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