In Tech's Batman v Superman, Gawker's Nick Denton Sets a Trap for Peter Thiel

The intrigue sure didn't last. Soon after Gawker Media founder Nick Denton shared his suspicion with the New York Times early last week that the lawsuit he and his company lost in March—in which a Florida jury awarded wrestler Hulk Hogan $140 million in damages over part of a sex tape Gawker had published in 2012—had been financed by someone other than Hogan, the highly successful Silicon Valley investor Peter Thiel revealed himself as the deep pocket behind Hogan’s lawsuit, as well as at least one more of several actions now pending against Gawker.

The motive: simple revenge. Gawker’s tech-industry gossip site, Valleywag, had published a post by an out gay writer in 2007 claiming that Thiel is also gay (as is Denton), and that Valley mores were keeping Thiel and other tech achievers in the closet, out of a sort of group cowardice among venture capitalist power brokers. “Not that there's anything wrong with [homosexuality]. But someone else, somewhere else, might take issue with it," Valleywag's Owen Thomas wrote. "That’s VC thinking.”