Early Facebook investor Peter Thiel sells majority of shares
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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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