Silicon Valley billionaire Peter Thiel recently disclosed that he was the financier of Hulk Hogan's successful lawsuit against Gawker Media. Now the lawyers in that case are defending the honor of yet another unusual client whose honor Gawker has sullied: Donald Trump's Hair. Or rather, the hair restoration specialist Gawker singled out in a recent investigative piece as being the likely architect of Trump's golden hair dome.
Last week, Thiel’s lawyer-for-hire, Charles J. Harder, sent Gawker a letter on behalf of Ivari International’s owner and namesake, Edward Ivari, in which Harder claims that Feinberg’s story was “false and defamatory,” invaded Ivari’s privacy, intentionally inflicted emotional distress, and committed “tortious interference” with Ivari’s business relations.
It's not precisely clear what basis Ivari's new lawyer has for claiming the Gawker story was false, given that the outlet was in this case seemingly on solid ground in sourcing each of the referenced claims. But this would be the latest among at least five other lawsuits Harder's firm has targeted Gawker with. Thiel himself has declared that he's spent roughly $10 million in funding for multiple anti-Gawker lawsuits.
From the sidelines, it certainly appears that Thiel is using his wallet to not just retaliate against, but fully obliterate a news outlet whose coverage of him he didn't like. That, too, seems to be a prerogative of our newest billionaire class. Merely owning your very own press outlets isn't good enough—now it's time to bury the others.
As to what additional motivation there might be for someone to spend actual money trying to bury speculation that Donald Trump's famously improbable hair scaffolding is the product of a hair restoration clinic that was based on the same exclusive floor of the Trump Tower reserved for Trump's own personal office? Well, there’s the fact that billionaire Peter Thiel is a pledged delegate for ... Donald Trump.
Yes, it's all very odd and very Gilded Age and none of it makes a lot of sense. That said, protecting the sanctity of Donald Trump's Hair still seems a pretty unusual little orange hill to die on. Or dye on.
Whichever.