PayPal co-founder Peter Thiel quits Meta's board; shifts focus to US midterm elections

Peter Thiel, co-founder of PayPal and Palantir Techlogies, on Monday, has stepped down from board of directors of Facebook parent company Meta nearly after 17 years. According to Guardian, Thiel has decided to quit post with an aim to support midterm election campaign of Donald Trump's allies tably, Silicon Valley billionaire and adviser to former President Trump, who joined social media giant in 2005, is considered as major supporter of Trump and reportedly donated $10m each to Senate campaigns of Blake Masters, who is running for a seat in Arizona, and JD Vance, who is running in Ohio.

Also, report said since its inception in Facebook, he has been considered as most controversial board member due to his conservative ideology. As per Guardian, it was Thiel who provided a shield to controversial posts of former US President during Presidential election held in 2020. Facebook did t take down Trump’s posts despite he violated its community standards multiple times. Meanwhile, Meta, in a statement released on Monday said that Thiel will stay on until Meta’s next shareholder meeting later this year, where he will t stand for reelection.

"Peter is truly an original thinker who you can bring your hardest problems and get unique suggestions. He has served on our board for almost two decades, and we’ve always kwn that at some point he would devote his time to or interests," Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg said in a statement.

Peter Thiel called Zuckerberg one of "great entrepreneurs"

Reacting to Zuckerberg statement, Thiel called Zuckerberg one of "great entrepreneurs of our time” and applauded his “brilliance, power and conscientiousness”. It is worth mentioning 54-year-old German-American billionaire entrepreneur joined Facebook as a board member in 2005. tably, he joined a year after social media giant was founded and seven years before it made its debut on Wall Street. Peter Thiel has been an increasingly polarising figure among company’s directors due to his conservative politic according to a report by Associated Press. 

Im: AP