What's happened
Peter Thiel left $50m of his own money in Silicon Valley Bank, despite his company advising others to move their money from the bank, which is widely blamed for precipitating its failure.
Why it matters
The collapse of Silicon Valley Bank is the second-biggest bank failure in US history, and the role of Thiel's Founders Fund in triggering the run on the bank has been widely criticised. Thiel's decision to leave his own money in the bank, despite his company's advice, raises questions about his judgement and the potential conflict of interest.
What the papers say
The New Statesman and The Guardian both report on Thiel's decision to leave his own money in the bank, despite his company's advice to move funds. The New York Post also reports on Thiel's decision, but frames it as a failure to follow his own advice, rather than a conflict of interest.
How we got here
Thiel's Founders Fund noticed payment problems when dealing with Silicon Valley Bank (SVB) last week, spurring him to withdraw all of its funds from the bank by Thursday (9 March), just as the $42bn bank run that caused the second-biggest bank failure in US history kicked off, and a day before the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) shut SVB, the country's 16th-largest lender, down.
More on these topics
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Peter Andreas Thiel is a German-American billionaire entrepreneur and venture capitalist. He is a co-founder of PayPal, Palantir Technologies and Founders Fund.
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Silicon Valley Bank, a subsidiary of SVB Financial Group, is a U.S.-based high-tech commercial bank. The bank has helped fund more than 30,000 start-ups.