Early Facebook Investor Peter Thiel Sells Most Of His Stock

Peter Thiel, one of Facebook's earliest investors and a company director, sold 20 million shares for $396 million on August 16 and 17, according to a regulatory filing Monday, leaving the cofounder of PayPal with 5.6 million remaining Facebook shares.

Thiel's sale comes after a lockout period ended, freeing most investors -- though not cofounder Mark Zuckerberg -- to sell millions of shares.

Thiel had already sold about 17 million Facebook shares at $38 apiece at the company's initial public offering in May. The stock has fallen steadily since, and Thiel got only an average of about $20 apiece for the shares he sold in August.

Between the August sales and IPO, Thiel has sold more than $1 billion in Facebook stock in a three-month period. His investment in Facebook in 2004 was $500,000.

Thiel had been expected to sell much of his Facebook stock ever since converting millions of Class B shares into Class A shares in early August, according to Forbes.

Meanwhile, Politico is reporting where some of Thiel's profits went. According to a disclosure also released on Monday, Thiel, whose politics lean libertarian, gave $1 million to Club For Growth Action, a PAC dedicated to "beating big-government politicians."

Thiel was played by Wallace Langham in the 2010 movie about the founding of Facebook, The Social Network.

Email: Paul.Bond@thr.com