He sold the majority of his shares in Facebook for over $1 billion in 2012, but remains on the board of directors. Earlier, Thiel became Facebook's first outside investor when he acquired a 10.2% stake for $500,000 in August 2004. In 2005, he launched Founders Fund with PayPal partners Ken Howery and Luke Nosek. In 2003, he launched Palantir Technologies, a big data analysis company, serving as its chairman since its inception. He co-founded PayPal with Max Levchin and Luke Nosek in 1998, serving as chief executive officer until its sale to eBay in 2002 for $1.5 billion.Īfter PayPal, he founded Clarium Capital, a global macro hedge fund based in San Francisco. He founded Thiel Capital Management in 1996. Secretary of Education William Bennett and as a derivatives trader at Credit Suisse. He worked as a securities lawyer at Sullivan & Cromwell, as a speechwriter for former U.S. As of June 2023, Thiel had an estimated net worth of $9.7 billion and was ranked 213rd on the Bloomberg Billionaires Index. A co-founder of PayPal, Palantir Technologies, and Founders Fund, he was the first outside investor in Facebook. Peter Andreas Thiel ( / t iː l/ born 11 October 1967) is a German-American billionaire entrepreneur, venture capitalist, and political activist.
