Tech billionaire Peter Thiel has reportedly made an offer to buy Gawker, the website that he helped destroy after they outed him as gay.
Reuters: Peter Thiel has made an offer to buy Gawker
— Jon Swaine (@jonswaine) January 11, 2018
Thiel made his first official bid on the site after expressing interest in purchasing it last month, Reuters reports. Reuters was not able to determine how much Thiel bid on Gawker, but their sources claimed the site is worth only a few million dollars.
Gawker employees recently launched a Kickstarter to try to relaunch the defunct site, but they raised less than $90,000 of their stated $500,000 goal. The self-funding effort was apparently an attempt to avoid being bought out by Thiel. (RELATED: Former Gawker Employees Attempt To Resurrect The Site)
“Gawker isn’t gone, it’s up for auction,” the campaign read. “The person who drove the site into bankruptcy wants to buy it.”
The site was forced into bankruptcy in 2016 after a Thiel-funded lawsuit by pro-wrestler Hulk Hogan. Hogan was awarded $140 million in damages because the site published a sex tape he was featured in without his permission.
Thiel’s funding of the lawsuit and his subsequent offer to buy the website appear to be revenge for Gawker outing him as gay.