Early Facebook investor Peter Thiel sells majority of shares
Peter Thiel, one of the earliest investors in Facebook, has sold the majority of his stake in the social networking company, according to a financial document filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission on Monday.
Thiel has been involved with the company since August 2004, when he put $500,000 into the social network start-up.
The filing shows that the German-born billionaire and co-founder of PayPal sold almost 20 million shares last Thursday and Friday. CNN Money reports that the investor and his funds should get about $395.8 million from the sale.
Thiel has now made a reported $1 billion from his initial Facebook investment, and there may still be more to be made. While Thiel has sold most of his Facebook stock, he still has shares worth about $112 million, according to the Wall Street Journal.
Thiel started his great Facebook sell-off in May of this year. He sold 16.8 million shares during the company’s initial public offering, but had to wait until last week to sell additional shares because of a lockup period for insiders selling stock.
That lockup period expired on Thursday, when Facebook shares plunged as much as $1.49, or 7%, to $19.71.
The SEC filing shows that Thiel sold his shares for $19.27 to $20.69.
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