Billionaire investor Peter Thiel reportedly funded Hulk Hogan's lawsuit against Gawker

The name of a surprising new contender may have just entered the ring of Gawker's increasingly strange legal showdown with Hulk Hogan. 

Forbes is reporting through anonymous sources that billionaire Silicon Valley investor and Donald Trump delegate Peter Thiel has been secretly helping Hogan, whose real name is Terry Bollea, bankroll his ongoing quest to take down the media company in court.

The supposed revelation does fit with rumors throughout the Florida trial that Hogan was being supported by a wealthy benefactor. Gawker Media founder Nick Denton told the New York Times on Monday that he had a "personal hunch" that this backer had ties to Silicon Valley.

Gawker Media said in a statement: "According to these reports, a board member of Facebook and a major funder of The Committee to Protect Journalists has been secretly funding a legal campaign against our journalists. We trust the appeals court will correct the outsized Florida jury verdict and reaffirm the law that protects a free and critical press, which is more embattled and important than ever."

An attempt to reach Peter Thiel's venture capital firm Founders Fund was not returned.

Thiel, who's worth an estimated $2.7 billion, is known among tech circles for his eccentric libertarian views. In the past, he's encouraged kids to avoid college, and more recently backed Republican frontrunner Donald Trump for president.

Yet he remains one of the most respected names in venture capital with a track record of backing startups that went on to become some of tech's most successful companies, including Facebook, PayPal, Palantir and LinkedIn.

Thiel currently sits on Facebook's board of directors.

He also hasn't been shy about his hatred for Denton's New York-based news organization, particularly its tech gossip-focused arm Valleywag, which has since been shuttered. The site once published an article about Thiel's sexual orientation, on which Denton added a comment noting that Thiel had threatened to go after the website.

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Thiel didn't exactly hide his distaste for the company. He once called the Valleywag blog the "Silicon Valley equivalent of Al Qaeda."

According to his Founders Fund website bio, Thiel also supports the Committee to Protect Journalists, a group that advocates for the freedom of the press.

Bollea was awarded $140 million by a judge earlier this year over the publication of a private sex tape. Gawker is in the process of appealing that decision now, but earlier this month, the pro wrestler slammed the news site with yet another lawsuit over the site's alleged leak to tabloids of the transcript of a tape in which Hogan used a racial slur.

The unusually harsh decision against Gawker initially spurred discussion about press freedoms and how much power a litigious celebrity should have over news coverage. The alleged role of a tech billionaire in the case adds an interesting twist to those questions.

Here's what some journalists and media figures had to say about the report on Tuesday evening:

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Jason Abbruzzese contributed to this report.

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