To The Moon

$Meta Platforms, Inc.(FB)$

$PayPal(PYPL)$

$Palantir Technologies Inc.(PLTR)$

Peter Thiel's share play is one of the most dominant plays in Silicon Valley and has parlayed his personal network, financial investments and zeal for debate into a business philosophy emulated by start-up founders, who idolize Thiel as “the cult leader of the cult of disruption,” wrote Max Chafkin, author of the 2021 Thiel biography “The Contrarian.”

Thiel’s family immigrated to the United States from Germany when he was an infant and settled in California. He was a childhood chess champion who attended Stanford as an undergraduate and then the university’s law school. While there, he launched the conservative publication the Stanford Review, which railed against what Thiel and his fellow writers derided as the encroaching force of political correctness on college campuses. Later, Thiel co-wrote “The Diversity Myth,” with tech investor David Sacks, which covered the same topics.

After college, he raised $1 million from friends and family to launch Thiel Capital Management to invest in the dot-com boom, before co-founding a payments company with Max Levchin that would become PayPal, which was later acquired by eBay.

In Feb 2022, Meta Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Mark Zuckerberg said in a statement, “Peter has been a valuable member of our board and I’m deeply grateful for everything he has done for our company—from believing in us when few others would, to teaching me so many lessons about business, economics, and the world.”

Mr. Thiel is expected to step down after the company’s annual shareholder meeting, which is typically in May.

“It has been a privilege to work with one of the great entrepreneurs of our time,” Mr. Thiel said in a statement. “His talents will serve Meta well as he leads the company into a new era.”

Mr. Thiel’s departure coincides with intensifying pressures confronting Facebook on several fronts.

Meta’s stock price last week fell by 26%, shaving $323 billion from its market valuation, after the company said it expected revenue growth to slow. It also cited inflation as a weight on advertiser spending and estimated that ad-tracking changes imposed by Apple Inc. would cost the social-media giant $10 billion this year.

Considered the tech industry’s most prominent conservative, Mr. Thiel has long been considered one of the strongest voices on the board. He has repeatedly advised Mr. Zuckerberg not to bow to public pressure, particularly regarding the social-media network’s effects on politics.

The tech tycoon famously became Mr. Trump’s most notable ally in Silicon Valley during the 2016 election.He contributed to the Republican’s 2016 campaign and served as adviser to Mr. Trump throughout his presidency.

For the coming midterm elections, Mr. Thiel will be supporting J.D. Vance and Blake Masters, who are running for U.S. Senate seats representing Ohio and Arizona, respectively, the person said.

Mr. Masters, a Republican challenging Democratic Sen. Mark Kelly in Arizona, has served as chief operating officer of Thiel Capital and is president of the Thiel Foundation.

Mr. Vance is a partner at Narya, an early-stage venture-capital fund that has invested alongside Mr. Thiel.

Mr. Thiel had discussed with people close to him the possibility of resigning from Facebook’s board as far back as 2018, after his relationship with the company came under strain following a dispute with a fellow director over Mr. Thiel’s support for Trump’s campaign.

Mr. Thiel’s politics have made him a lightning rod at Facebook, with some liberal critics citing him as a negative influence on Mr. Zuckerberg, while many conservatives see him as an essential ally in an industry that they say has long leaned to the left.