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Two Soylentils wrote in with an update on Hulk Hogan's lawsuit against Gawker. After these stories were submitted, it appears to have been confirmed by The New York Times that Thiel paid $10 million to fund the lawsuit.
Peter Thiel Funded Hulk Hogan's Lawsuit Against Gawker
Peter Thiel, the billionaire Silicon Valley venture capitalist and libertarian who we have reported on several times, reportedly bankrolled former wrestler Hulk Hogan's (real name: Terry Bollea) lawsuit against Gawker. After Gawker published a sex tape featuring Bollea, Bollea sued and was eventually awarded $140 million by a jury. That decision is being appealed.
Thiel has had several run-ins with Gawker's reporting on his political and financial decisions, but the most prominent incident was in 2007, when the website's then-running gossip vertical Valleywag outed Thiel's sexual orientation in a post titled, "Peter Thiel is totally gay, people."
Thiel, who is now open about being gay, later called Valleywag "the Silicon Valley equivalent of Al Qaeda."
Although the exact details of the arrangement between Thiel and Bollea are unknown, if Thiel negotiated for a share of the lawsuit's proceeds, he may get to stick it to Gawker while earning millions of dollars.
[Continues...]
Hulk Hogan's Sex Tape and a Tech Billionaire's Revenge on Gawker
El Reg reports
Hogan's legal team specifically dropped a part of his lawsuit that would have seen Gawker's insurance company pick up the tab. On top of which, Hogan reportedly turned down a $10M settlement offer from Gawker to stop the case going to court.
Increasingly, it looked as though, [rather than compensating Hogan,] the lawsuit's main focus was to ruin Gawker--which does not have $140M in assets and would have to declare bankruptcy if the judgment stands.
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(Score: 2) by jmorris on Monday May 30 2016, @03:57AM
It would have been the higher road to allow the insurance company to pay out the damages.
Not at all, then it would have just been about the money. Beyond getting the insurance company out of the picture these lawyers have managed to get Gawker's principle held -personally- liable. They don't want the money from some insurance company who would just pass it on in higher rates for everyone. The idea is to break Gawker Media and to break Nick Denton personally, in a very long, public and painful process as an example to others. They don't have anything like $140Mil so the actual money they end up getting will probably pay legal fees and pay for a big party to celebrate. It certainly will not make up for the damage to Hogan's reputation. But they will have provided a great public service by cleaning out a vile hive of scum and villainy.