Lawyers for Peter Thiel file a motion to block efforts that have prevented him from bidding on Gawker.com assets during bankruptcy proceeding
the news site he helped Hulk Hogan take down Tweets: Violet Blue / @violetblue : 2017 is Year of the Vengeful Billionaires. http://twitter.com/... Matt Pearce / @mattdpearce : “Whoever ends up buying the site will also buy its archives, which are still up, and will have the right to do with them what they want, including delete them.” https://www.buzzfeed.com/... Liam Stack / @liamstack : Peter Thiel may be looking to buy the defunct http://Gawker.com and its archive, which would allow him to delete everything the site ever published. https://www.buzzfeed.com/... Anil Dash / @anildash : Of all the news to bury right before a holiday, it's Thiel trying to fully erase the existence of Gawker. I wonder if this is due to the particular types of stories Gawker tended to get right well before other sites did? http://www.buzzfeed.com/... Sam Biddle / @samfbiddle : he's one of the only potential buyers who could afford to withstand a barrage of future lawsuits funded by Peter Thiel https://twitter.com/... Brendan O'Connor / @_grendan : It has been obvious for some time that this is the only ending the narrative will allow https://www.buzzfeed.com/... Kara Swisher / @karaswisher : Really and truly, he is the wankiest wanker in Wankerville. http://www.buzzfeed.com/... Ryan Cooper / @ryanlcooper : a cool thing about the American legal system is it's 90% openly for sale, deepest pockets wins https://www.buzzfeed.com/... Matthew Yglesias / @mattyglesias : Peter Thiel is an excellent argument for higher taxes. Some billionaires dedicate a chapter of their lives to philanthropy but his projects are like a form of anti-charity. https://www.buzzfeed.com/... Rafat Ali / @rafat : Peter Thiel May Be Looking To Buy http://gawker.com/ http://www.buzzfeed.com/... See also Mediagazer
Context & Ripple Effects
This motion is the latest turn in a saga that began when Forbes reported Thiel played a lead role in bankrolling Hulk Hogan's lawsuits against Gawker Media. That litigation drove Gawker into bankruptcy in June 2016, with a firm bid from Ziff Davis reportedly under $100M already on the table.
Now Thiel's lawyers are asking the court to remove barriers that have kept him from bidding on Gawker.com itself — the domain and an archive of more than 200,000 articles that remain live. Within weeks he would join other bidders with an offer in bankruptcy court, making this motion the hinge between funder-of-the-lawsuits and potential owner-of-the-remains.
First-order effects
- If the motion succeeds, Thiel moves from adversary to eligible bidder, directly challenging Ziff Davis's position as the presumptive buyer of Gawker's remaining assets.
- The bankruptcy estate gains a potentially deeper-pocketed bidder for the Gawker.com domain and its 200K-plus-article archive.
Second-order effects
- Whoever wins the auction acquires the right to keep or delete everything Gawker ever published — as commentators like Matt Pearce noted, the archives come with the domain, so control of the record passes to the buyer.
- A Thiel purchase would hand critics a ready-made narrative of billionaire retaliation — the 'Year of the Vengeful Billionaires' framing already circulating on social media — raising reputational costs for any court-sanctioned sale to him.
Third-order effects
- The case sets a structural precedent: a litigant can help bankrupt a media company through funded lawsuits and then lawfully acquire its assets at auction, blurring the line between legal attack and acquisition strategy.
- News organizations' archives — long treated as inert back-catalogs — become contested assets whose fate can hinge on who outbids whom in bankruptcy court.
The trend: Litigation-funded takedowns of media companies are converging with bankruptcy auctions, letting adversaries convert courtroom victories into ownership of the outlets they targeted.