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Peter ThielThe company, one of the longest-serving board members of Facebook parent Meta, said Monday it plans to step down.

Mr Thiel, 54, said he wanted to focus on influencing the November midterm elections. This person said Mr. Thiel views the midterms as crucial to changing the direction of the country and supports candidates who support the agenda of former president Donald J. Trump.

With a net worth estimated at $2.6 billion by Forbes, Mr. Thiel has become one of the Republican Party’s biggest donors over the past year. Last year, two protégés gave $10 million to the campaigns of Blake Masters, who is running for the Senate seat in Arizona, and JD Vance, who is running for the Senate in Ohio.

Mr. Thiel has been on Meta’s board of directors since 2005, when Facebook was a small startup and was one of its first institutional investors. However, scrutiny over Mr. Thiel’s position on the board has steadily increased as the company became embroiled in political controversies, including: Banning Mr Trump from the platformand as the venture capitalist becomes more politically active.

Thiel’s departure means that Meta’s board of directors loses its foremost conservative voice. The board of directors has undergone significant changes in recent years as many of its members leave and are frequently replaced by Silicon Valley entrepreneurs. Dropbox CEO Drew Houston joins Facebook’s board of directors in 2020 and DoorDash founder Tony Xu joined him last month.

“Peter was a valued member of our board of directors and I am deeply grateful for everything he has done for our company,” Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg said in a statement. “Peter is a truly original thinker to whom you can bring up your toughest problems and get original advice.”

in a statement on Monday, Mr. Thiel said: “It has been a privilege to work with one of the greatest entrepreneurs of our time. Mark Zuckerberg’s intelligence, energy and conscience are enormous. His talents will serve Meta as he takes the company into a new era.”

Mr. Thiel first met Mr. Zuckerberg 18 years ago, when he provided the entrepreneur with $500,000 in capital for Facebook, providing the company with $4.9 million in capital. This gave Mr. Thiel, who controls a 10% stake in the social network with the venture firm Founders Fund, a seat on the board.

Since then, Mr. Thiel has become Mr. Zuckerberg’s confidant. He advised the company on the challenges of shifting its business to mobile phones during the early years of rapid user growth and during its 2012 IPO.

He is also seen as the dissident who has the ear of Mr. Zuckerberg, advocating for unlimited speech on digital platforms. His conservative views also brought ideological diversity to Facebook’s board.

In 2019 and 2020, as Facebook grappled with how to deal with allegations made in political speech and political advertising, Mr. withstand popular pressure removing these ads even when other executives and board members think the company needs to change its position. Mr. Zuckerberg sided with Mr. Thiel.

Mr. Thiel’s political influence and ties to key Republicans and conservatives provided a crucial gateway to Washington for Mr. Zuckerberg, especially during the Trump administration. In October 2019, Mr. Zuckerberg and Mr. Thiel had a special dinner with President Trump.

Facebook and Mr. Zuckerberg have long resented Mr. Thiel’s presence on the board. In 2016, Mr. Thiel was one of several tech titans in the largely liberal Silicon Valley who publicly supported Mr. Trump’s presidential campaign.

With Mr Trump’s provocative Facebook posts scrutinized in 2020, critics cited Mr Thiel’s board seat as a reason for Mr Zuckerberg’s insistence that Mr Trump’s posts stay afloat.

Trump’s account ban after Facebook attacked the US Capitol on January 6 last year has become a major rallying point for conservatives who say mainstream social platforms are censoring them.

Mr. Vance, who works at one of Mr. Thiel’s venture funds, and Mr. Masters, the business manager of Mr. Thiel’s family office, opposed Facebook. In October, the two Senate candidates debated in an opinion piece. New York Post He said Mr Zuckerberg’s $400 million donation to local election offices in 2020 amounted to “election interference” that needed to be investigated.

Recently, Mr. Thiel has openly expressed his disagreement over content moderation decisions on Facebook and other major social media platforms. At a Miami event hosted by a conservative tech association in October, he said he would “take the QAnon and Pizzagate conspiracy theories every day through a Ministry of Truth.”

Mr. Thiel has also increased his political donations to Republican candidates over the past year. Ahead of the midterms, it supports three Senate candidates and 12 House candidates. Among these House nominees are three who made a primary challenge to the Republicans who voted for the impeachment of Mr Trump for the January 6 events.