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Eight years ago, Hulk Hogan and Peter Thiel made online media history by taking down the notoriously “woke” left-wing website Gawker, driving it straight into bankruptcy. It seemed like a perfect storm, with every piece falling right into place. But there was more to this story—it was a meticulously planned battle.

Back in March 2016, Hulk Hogan sued Gawker after they posted a video of him having sex with his best friend’s wife, and here’s the twist: billionaire investor and conservative powerhouse Peter Thiel was funding Hogan’s legal battle. Why? Well, a decade earlier, Gawker had publicly outed Thiel as gay, a move he never forgave. So, in a move of pure calculated revenge, Thiel secretly poured $10 million into lawsuits against Gawker, determined to dismantle the site.

The Atlantic:

Bollea v. Gawker isn’t just one of the most consequential lawsuits in the history of modern American media. It’s also probably the strangest. In 2016, Hulk Hogan, the professional wrestler, won a nine-figure lawsuit that ultimately bankrupted Gawker Media, a fleet of sites that epitomized the barbed brilliance of New York’s young media crowd. The lawsuit concerned a video of Hogan (né Terry Gene Bollea) having consensual sex with his best friend’s wife, while that same friend recorded the encounter—secretly, according to Hogan and later reporting. Behind the scenes of this tawdry affair, a more shocking story was playing out, in which Peter Thiel, the billionaire investor, seemed to be exorcising a deep grudge against Gawker by bankrolling Hogan’s lawsuit to destroy the media company that published the sex tape.

After his victory, Hulk Hogan took a victory lap, announcing that Gawker targeted the wrong guy.

It’s the kind of story Hollywood could turn into a blockbuster movie, but they never will—because in this tale, the radical progressives lost the battle.

However, Peter Theil is spilling the beans like never before, and in his own words. In an eye-opening interview with Ann Coulter, Peter Thiel laid it all out, detailing the strategic takedown of the left-wing giant Gawker alongside Mr. Wrestlemania, Hulk Hogan.

Many people label Peter Thiel and Hulk Hogan as “monsters” for taking down Gawker, a site known for posting “revenge porn.” However, as this X thread points out, it was actually a jury of Gawker’s peers that awarded Mr. Hogan $130 million after hearing all the details of the case.

Swann Marcus:

People who claim those dastardly monsters Peter Thiel and Hulk Hogan “killed Gawker” always conveniently leave out that a jury of normal people are the ones who hit Gawker with a $130 million judgment which they wouldn’t have done if Gawker didn’t frequently post revenge porn

Peter Thiel jumped in because Gawker kept doing things that opened themselves up to liability and Thiel wanted revenge for them outing him. You can say that’s an unworthy motive all you want, but he couldn’t have done anything if they didn’t give him those grounds for a lawsuit

Like, if the New York Times outed Peter Thiel (which they wouldn’t do), Thiel never would have been able to destroy the New York Times because the Times doesn’t do things that open them up to $100 million legal judgments. There was no dangerous precedent set by the Gawker case

Gawker attempted a comeback but ended up shutting down again—this time so quietly, hardly anyone noticed.

The truth is, the woke bullies at Gawker are gone, and many would argue the world is better for it. And we have Peter Thiel to thank for that.

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