Peter Thiel, an early Facebook investor and close confidante of CEO Mark Zuckerberg, is leaving the board of Facebook (Meta) to focus on getting candidates aligned with former President Donald Trump elected in the 2022 midterms.
Thiel will not stand for re-election to the board at Meta's 2022 annual stockholders meeting, the company announced on Monday.
The Wall Street Journal reported on Feb. 7 that Thiel stepped down to focus on conservative political causes, including U.S. Senate bids by two of his proteges, Blake Masters in Arizona and JD Vance in Ohio.
Thiel “thinks that the Republican Party can advance the Trump agenda and he wants to do what he can to support that,” a source close to Thiel told Bloomberg. “His focus will be on supporting Blake Masters, JD Vance and others who support the Trump agenda.”
Thiel, the co-founder of PayPal and Palantir, has been on the Facebook board since 2005.
Many staffers at Facebook were reportedly enraged when Thiel endorsed Trump at the 2016 Republican National Convention.
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