Yahoo Finance Gawker Boss Blasts Tycoon Who Funded Hulk Hogan
The editor of Gawker has written an open letter to the tech tycoon who bankrolled Hulk Hogan's legal case which could cripple the media company - calling him a "thin-skinned billionaire".
Gawker Media is considering a possible sale two months after it lost a $140m privacy lawsuit involving a sex tape featuring the wrestler.
It emerged this week that Silicon Valley billionaire Peter Thiel bankrolled the Hogan legal action to the tune of $10m .
He told the New York Times he has paid lawyers to bring cases against Gawker, accusing it of bullying.
In a letter posted on Thursday night, Mr Denton said: "I can see how irritating Gawker would be to you and other figures in the technology industry.
"And I can see how tempting it would be to use Silicon Valley’s most abundant resource, a vast fortune, against the harsh words of the writers of a small New York media company.
"But this vindictive decade-long campaign is quite out of proportion to the hurt you claim.
"Peter, this is twisted. Even were you to succeed in bankrupting Gawker Media, the writers you dislike, and me, just think what it will mean.
"You are a board member of Facebook, which is under congressional investigation after our site Gizmodo reported on the opaque and potentially biased way it decides what news sources are seen by its billions of users.
"Now you show yourself as a thin-skinned billionaire who, despite all the success and public recognition that a person could dream of, seethes over criticism and plots behind the scenes to tie up his opponents in litigation he can afford better than they."
One of the company's blogs, the now-defunct Valleywag, posted a story in 2007 that said Mr Thiel was gay, when he had not yet publicly disclosed his sexuality.
"I saw Gawker pioneer a unique and incredibly damaging way of getting attention by bullying people even when there was no connection with the public interest," Mr Thiel told the New York Times.
The company also wrote other articles that he said he considered critical of his friends and others.
Gawker said on Thursday it expects to prevail in an appeal of the Hogan verdict and that it is exploring contingency plans.
The company said it had "recently" hired the banker, Mark Patricof, of Houlihan Lokey.
The Wall Street Journal and the New York Post reported Gawker was interested in a sale.
Gawker has not said whether it could afford to pay the $140m verdict . A Florida judge on Wednesday refused to reduce the size of the award.
During the trial in Florida in March, Hogan's lawyer said Gawker Media's gross revenue in 2015 was $48.7m.
Lawyers said the company was worth $83m.
