Peter Thiel, the billionaire venture capitalist, will leave the board of Facebook’s parent company Meta Platforms Inc (NASDAQ:FB) later this year.
Thiel, a co-founder of PayPal (NASDAQ:PYPL), has been on Facebook’s board since 2005, just a year after it was founded, and was its first external investor and one of its largest.
Thiel decided to not be re-elected as a director but will stay in his role until the company’s next annual shareholders meeting – expected to be in May.
"Peter has been a valuable member… from believing in us when few others would, to teaching me so many lessons about business, economics, and the world," said Meta chief executive Mark Zuckerberg.
"Peter is truly an original thinker you can bring your hardest problems and get unique suggestions.”
He did often argue with other board members, NBC News said, due to his political beliefs and his several other business interests in tech start-ups which were mostly considered as potential Facebook competitors.
Thiel, for example, lobbied Mr Zuckerberg to keep running political advertising without fact-checking ahead of the 2020 election, according to a report in The Wall Street Journal.
Thiel worked with Elon Musk in the 90s to help build PayPal, before honing in on his investments.
Since then he has co-founded Palantir and via the Founders Fund, where Thiel is a partner, as well as investing in Spotify, SpaceX, and Airbnb (NASDAQ:ABNB).
Having become a vocal supporter of President Donald Trump, the Financial Times reported overnight that his current intention is to support Republicans aligned with Trump’s agenda, such as Blake Masters and JD Vance, as they seek elections to the Senate in this year’s midterm elections.