In the suit, Hogan said he was unaware that he was being taped and has suffered enormous emotional and reputational damage as a consequence of Gawker's release of the tape. Hogan sued Gawker for publishing a sex tape of him and a former friend's wife (now ex-wife) on its website in 2012 that showed nudity, as well as Hogan uttering a racial slur, for which he has since apologized.
Thiel, 48, a co-founder of PayPal and a board member at Facebook, publicly confirmed Wednesday that he's covered roughly $10 million in expenses for Hogan's lawsuit, saying he considers it 'one of my greater philanthropic things that I've done.' The second happened Monday, when Forbes outed Thiel, a venture capitalist, technology entrepreneur and avowed libertarian, as the financial backer of former pro-wrestler Hulk Hogan in a massive lawsuit against Gawker. The first occurred in a 2007 blog post on Valleywag, a now-defunct Gawker publication, which boldly stated, 'Peter Thiel is totally gay, people.' One, apparently, is the cause of the other.
There have now been two 'outings' of Silicon Valley billionaire Peter Thiel-and they're not just interlinked.
