Peter Thiel: ‘Single-digit millionaire’ Hogan couldn’t afford Gawker suit

BILLIONAIRE Peter Thiel has justified funding Hulk Hogan’s lawsuit against Gawker, saying it’s hard for “a single-digit millionaire” to pursue justice.

Peter Thiel, PayPal founder-turned-venture-capitalist, discusses his support for US Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump, at the National Press Club in Washington DC. Picture: Saul Loeb/AFP

SILICON Valley billionaire Peter Thiel justified his decision to fund Hulk Hogan’s lawsuit against Gawker Media on Monday, insisting it’s hard for “a single-digit millionaire” to pursue justice.

“If you’re a single-digit millionaire like Hulk Hogan, you have no effective access to our legal system,” he said at the National Press Club in Washington DC. “It costs too much.”

Thiel also said former Gawker editor-in-chief AJ Daulerio acted like an “aspiring child pornographer”, referring to a crass joke he made in a 2013 deposition, Mediaite reported. In that deposition, Daulerio jested that a celebrity sex tape involving a child over age four would be newsworthy enough to post.

Thiel argued that the lawsuit won’t prevent other media outlets from publishing stories that might upset the rich and powerful because Gawker was a “singularly sociopathic bully”.

“One class of people they especially hated were other reporters, other writers,” he said.

Some of the billionaire’s media friends even pushed him to fund the lawsuit, Thiel said.

“I strongly believe in the First Amendment. I believe journalists are a privileged group in our society. They play an important role in getting us information in our system of checks and balances,” he said. “But these were not journalists.”

Thiel is estimated to have spent $US10 million ($13 million) helping Hogan sue Gawker Media for invasion of privacy, according to The Washington Post.

A Florida jury awarded Hogan a stunning $US140 million ($188 million) in March.

This article originally appeared on New York Post and was reproduced with permission.