Venture capitalist Peter Thiel made a last-minute donation of more than $1 million to the Donald Trump presidential campaign.

Thiel, you will recall, is the man who funded Hulk Hogan’s action against Gawker as an act of revenge, after the gossip site outed him as gay. Gawker was shuttered as a result of Thiel’s legal case.

Thiel, who sits on the board of Facebook and celebrated Silicon Valley incubator Y Combinator  has in the past admitted he thinks democracy is overrated.

His decision to bank0roll Trump, a self-declared sexual predator, has sparked debate in Silicon Valley.

One critic tweeted: “Women applying to YCombinator, take a good look at their principled stand against a partner who supports a sexual predator.”

The fact that Thiel remains on the board at Facebook meanwhile seems a direct threat to Facebook’s mission statement.

“Founded in 2004, Facebook’s mission is to give people the power to share and make the world more open and connected. People use Facebook to stay connected with friends and family, to discover what’s going on in the world, and to share and express what matters to them.”

In June, Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg voted to keep Thiel on his company’s board, despite Thiel’s funding of a lawsuit that destroyed Gawker Media.

The Trump presidential campaign has endorsed banning Muslims, building a wall on the border with Mexico, and more recently locking up political opponents and threatening journalists.

Thiel’s support of Trump excludes him from any business that was serious about diversity.

As one critics wrote: “Let no person who claims to give a damn about diversity and inclusion in one breath even begin to support & apologize for Thiel in another.”

Note to Facebook: lean in to this. 

 

 

 

 

Posted in: Infographic of the day, Opinion