He’s a control-freak public figure. He famously hates the idea of any unauthorised article or book being written about him.
Articles I’ve read, people I know in the Valley who know him. They all say it’s about his reputation as a Randian tycoon.
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Further, if his sexual preferences were known far and wide, what is the news value in publishing Peter Thiel is totally gay, people?
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Because the larger point of the author (a gay man himself, IIRC) was that if a high-profile figure in Silicon Valley could be openly gay, other gay tech entrepreneurs should be open and proud as well. The headline was clickbaity, but that’s life in the attention economy (see also Buzzfeed, BoingBoing, etc.)
In the end, it doesn’t matter to those of us concerned about a free press what the source of Thiel’s anger was. What does matter is that he couldn’t win a lawsuit against Gawker based on any of the articles, reducing any of his anger to a personal grudge. What does matter is that he was wealthy enough to put Gawker Media out of business on the basis of that personal grudge, without addressing it directly with them in a courtroom. That creates a chilling effect for other outlets who want to do unauthorised articles about him, because no outlet (including BoingBoing) is immune from winnable lawsuits from others. Perhaps you’re OK with that situations because you have valid reasons for not liking this particular outlet, but i and many others aren’t.
