On top of the $140 million in total damages facing Gawker, the company has already likely accumulated millions of dollars in legal fees defending itself. If Gawker fails in its appeal in Hogan’s first case, it may not be around much longer to explore that new focus. 2015, with Denton citing the company’s redeveloped focus on politics and culture as the reason behind its shuttering. It re-launched in 2013 before being decommissioned again in Dec. Launched in 2006, Valleywag spent two years exposing the personal and sometimes darker sides to Silicon Valley’s wealthiest and most influential people before being folded into the larger Gawker site in 2008. There are powerful people in Silicon Valley and the power of Silicon Valley is a relatively new phenomenon.” What’s unique about Gawker is that we’re an internet publication and the tech industry is of particular interest to us. “We write stories about powerful people in LA, but there are plenty of outlets writing stories about powerful people in LA. “We write stories about powerful people in New York, but there are plenty of outlets writing stories about powerful people in New York,” he said. (Hogan and Harder sued Gawker again in a Florida state court earlier this month alleging that Gawker attempted to extort Hogan over the release of a sex tape that was the subject of the first lawsuit.) When asked why he thought financial backing was coming from Silicon Valley, Denton said that exposing the money and power in the tech industry was a relatively recent practice. When reached by phone on Tuesday, Denton said that he did not know of Thiel’s involvement but had “heard that name” along with others in the speculation that surrounded Hogan’s first lawsuit. Gawker is currently appealing that ruling.Ĭharles Harder (center) is one of former wrestler Hulk Hogan's lawyers in his lawsuits against. It is also unknown whether Thiel will see any of the proceeds won by Hogan in a Florida court. It is unclear how Thiel became connected to Hogan or Harder or if Thiel, who is worth $2.7 billion by FORBES’ estimates, is the only outside financial backer of the cases against Gawker. Typically, the outside party negotiates for a defined share of any proceeds from the suit. It is not illegal for an outside entity to help fund another party’s lawsuit, and the practice, known as “ third-party litigation funding” has become increasingly common in the U.S. “If you’re a billionaire and you don’t like the coverage of you, and you don’t particularly want to embroil yourself any further in a public scandal, it’s a pretty smart, rational thing to fund other legal cases,” he told the Times. On Tuesday, in an interview with The New York Times, Gawker founder Nick Denton said he had a “personal hunch” that the financial aid could be linked to someone in Silicon Valley. During court proceedings, which ended in late March with a $140 million victory for Hogan, there had been rumors that a wealthy individual had funded Hogan’s case though there was never any hard evidence that surfaced to prove that was true. The involvement of Thiel, an eccentric figure in Silicon Valley who has advocated for teenagers to skip college and openly supported Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump, adds another wrinkle to a case that has garnered widespread attention for its implications over celebrity privacy and a publication’s First Amendment rights. Hogan is being represented by Charles Harder, a prominent Los Angeles-based lawyer.Ī spokesperson for Thiel declined to comment. Hogan, brought against New York-based Gawker. According to people familiar with the situation who agreed to speak on the condition of anonymity, Thiel, a cofounder and partner at Founders Fund, has played a lead role in bankrolling the cases Terry Bollea, a.k.a. Peter Thiel, a PayPal cofounder and one of the earliest backers of Facebook, has been secretly covering the expenses for Hulk Hogan’s lawsuits against online news organization Gawker Media. One of Silicon Valley's best-known investors has been footing a former wrestler’s legal bills in lawsuits against a shared enemy.
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