Peter Thiel will step down from his position on Meta's board of directors at the company's annual shareholder meeting, formerly Facebook.
Thiel is a venture capitalist who was also one of Facebook's first investors. He first met Mark Zuckerberg 18 years ago, and injected funds of USD 500 thousand, when Facebook's valuation was only USD 5 million.
Then since 2005 he got a position on the board of directors of Facebook. A number of sources said the PayPal founder retired to focus on the US election in November, but neither Thiel nor Meta clearly stated the reason for Thiel's resignation from Meta.
"Peter has been a very valuable member of the board of directors and I am so grateful for everything he does for our company," said Zuck, as quoted by The Verge, Tuesday (8/2/2022).
"Peter is a thinker where you can talk about your toughest problems and get unique advice. He's been on our board for almost two decades and we knew from the start that at some point he would shift his time to something else," he added.
At first, Thiel was better known as an investor for Facebook and various other technology companies. But in recent years he has become better known for his conservative political advocacy.
He publicly supported former President Donald Trump's 2016 campaign. Then he also donated to Republican candidates such as Kris Kobach, J.D. Vance, and Blake Masters.
Zuck himself refuses to cut ties with Thiel, and even protects his presence on Facebook's board of directors even though Thiel has been seen to be very supportive of Trump.
Thiel's resignation comes after the disappointing Meta-quarter financial reports. Such as the number of daily users of Facebook which decreased for the first time in history and also decreased the valuation of Facebook by 25%.