title: Ram Charan

text: He next appeared in 2016 the action thriller film "Dhruva" (2016), where he played as an IPS officer. The film follows the story of Dhruva, an IPS officer who wants to arrest Siddharth Abhimanyu (played by Arvind Swami), a wealthy scientist, who uses secret medical and illegal practices for profit. A remake of the Tamil film "Thani Oruvan" (2015), the film opened to positive reviews and is a commercial success at the box office, collecting over in 21 days. Krishna Vamsi of "The Indian Express" wrote that "From his physique to his fights, he makes you hark back to "Magadheera"." "The Times of India"'s Srividya Palaparthi added "Ram Charan looks his fittest best. As an actor, Ram Charan impresses in all the scenes that required high emotion. And as for the scenes where he had to be elevated as the hero, they will not disappoint his fans." He performed his own stunts in the film. Charan made a cameo appearance in "Ammadu Let's Do Kummudu" song from the film "Khaidi No. 150" (2017)"," alongside his father Chiranjeevi, Devi Sri Prasad, and Kajal Aggarwal. The film is a comeback of his father into the mainstream cinema after "Shankar Dada Zindabad" (2007).


title: Ram Charan

text: In 2018, he appeared in the Sukumar's directed period action-drama "Rangasthalam." He received particular praise for his performance as Chitti Babu, a semi-deaf Several critics cited his performance as career-best". The film is a huge commercial success, becoming the highest-grossing Telugu film of that year, with a gross collection of over 216 crores. Set in the 1980s in the Konaseema region of Andhra Pradesh, the film explores various themes including caste-based honour killings, brahminical patriarchy and good versus evil. The film was featured on several year-end best films' charts. Nagarjuna Rao of "Gulf News" wrote that "There comes a career-best for all actors at some point of time. "Rangasthalam" could well be Ram Charan's" Subhash K. Jha of "The Free Press Journal" commented Teja transforms in front of our eyes, adding "It is almost like watching a magic show where the entire appearance of the actor undergoes a sea change as we gawk in open-mouthed amazement." After a long time, Ram Charan won several accolades including Filmfare Award for Best Actor – Telugu and SIIMA Award for Best Actor – Telugu. In her article "5 Best Performances of Ram Charan" "Teja", S Behara of "The Indian Express" included Charan's performances in the films "Chirutha" (2007), "Magadheera" (2009), "Orange" (2010), "Dhruva" (2016) and "Rangasthalam" (2018). In March 2018, Rajamouli confirmed that Charan would feature as one of the leads alongside N. T. Rama Rao Jr. in his next film.


title: Ram Charan

text: He next appeared in the action film "Vinaya Vidheya Rama" (2019)"," directed by Boyapati Srinu, alongside Kiara Advani and Vivek Oberoi. The film opened to negative reviews, receiving criticism for the improper action scenes and screenplay, consequently didn't perform well at the box office. Writing for "The Hindu", Sangeetha Devi stated: "Whatever made Ram Charan sign up for this loud, mind-numbing film after "Rangasthalam?" ". "India Today"'s Janani K felt that, Charan need to start from scratch due to the film. As a result of the film's failure at the box office, Charan wrote an open apology to his fans.


title: Ram Charan

text: The same year, in March, it was revealed that he is playing Alluri Sitarama Raju in S. S. Rajamouli's directorial "RRR" (2022), co-starring N. T. Rama Rao Jr. He starred alongside his father Chiranjeevi in "Acharya" (2022) directed by Koratala Siva, which he also co-produced with Matinee Entertainment. Chiranjeevi confirmed that Charan would be doing the role in June 2020. In February 2021, he signed a film with director S. Shankar, tentatively titled as RC15, under the production of Dil Raju's Sri Venkateswara Creations. The filming is scheduled to complete by the end of December.


title: Ram Charan

text: Charan is an equestrian. "The Hans India" reported that he had learnt horse-riding in his childhood. In September 2011, he started his own the polo team Ram Charan Hyderabad Polo Riding Club. He also served on the board of directors of Maa TV. In 2009, he became a spokesperson for Pepsi's advertisement campaigns.


title: Ram Charan

text: Turbo Megha Airways Private Limited was incorporated in March 2013, with Charan and Vankayalapati Umesh as promoters. In early July 2015, the airline adopted the brand name "TruJet". It received its air operator's certificate for regional operations from the Directorate General of Civil Aviation on 7 July 2015. He is also the spokesman and co-owner of the obstacle running series Devil's circuit.


title: Ram Charan

text: Charan started his own film production company Konidela Production Company in 2016. The first film produced from the studio is his father Chiranjeevi's 150th film "Khaidi No. 150" (2017). The film grossed over 164 crore at the box office, on a budget of 50 crore. Following the success of the film, he again collaborated with his father and produced "Sye Raa Narasimha Reddy" (2019) with a production budget of ₹270–300 crore. The same year he announced his third film "Acharya" as the producer. The film marks his third collaboration with his father and second collaboration with Kajal Aggarwal, as a producer.


title: Ram Charan

text: He often organizes blood donation camps. On 26 May 2021, Charan launched oxygen banks along with his father Chiranjeevi, through Chiranjeevi Charitable Trust. Started initially in Anantapur and Guntur districts of Andhra Pradesh, they were later launched various other regions in India, including Telangana. These were launched due to the shortage of Oxygen cylinders, ventilators and concentrators, during the second wave of COVID-19 pandemic in India.


title: Ram Charan

text: Ram Charan is married to Upasana Kamineni, the vice-chairman of Apollo Charity and Chief Editor of "B Positive" magazine. Kamineni is the daughter of Shobana Kamineni and the granddaughter of Prathap C. Reddy, the Executive Chairman of the Apollo Hospitals. They were engaged in December 2011, and subsequently married on 14 June 2012 at the Temple Trees Farm House in Hyderabad. According to an article published by the "NewsX," both Charan and Kamineni were friends until ninth grade in the same school at Chennai, Tamil Nadu.


title: Ram Charan

text: Ram Charan takes part in the 41-days-long Ayyappa Deeksha (Vratham), which is done on a yearly basis in Sabarimala, Kerala. He started this practice since 2008. Charan stated that "this spiritual living is like a detox holiday for him to de-stress, take healthy and simple food and maintaining inner peace from his chaotic shooting schedules and uncertain mundane things" and said that his father Chiranjeevi had inspired him in following the "deeksha".


title: Ram Charan

text: Charan was featured in "GQ" India's Best Dressed Men list in 2016. He is popularly referred as the "Mega Power Star" in the media. The title is the combination of "Mega Star" [of his father Chiranjeevi] and "Power Star" [of his Uncle Pawan Kalyan]. He has appeared in "Forbes India"'s Celebrity 100 list since 2013. He was ranked twelfth on the Times' 50 Most Desirable Men for the year 2012, twenty-third in 2013, thirtieth in 2014, thirty-eighth in 2015. After a break of three years, he was again featured on the list in 2019 at eighteenth position.


title: Ram Charan

text: At an event held in January 2016 in Hyderabad, novelist Yandamuri Veerendranath commented that "Charan is surviving on his father Chiranjeevi' s popularity". Upon the release of Japanese dubbed version of "Magadheera" in Japan, Charan received wide popularity in the region. Japanese food company Ezaki Glico printed Charan's photo on their biscuit packets. Belonging to a film family, he admitted that "No two people are born with the same calibre and can achieve the same stardom", regarding Nepotism in the film industry. Raveena Tandon said that "Yash, Prabhas and Ram Charan are now pan-Indian names".


title: Peter Thiel

text: Peter Andreas Thiel (; born 11 October 1967) is a German-American billionaire entrepreneur, venture capitalist, and political activist. A co-founder of PayPal, Palantir Technologies, and Founders Fund, he was the first outside investor in Facebook. , Thiel had an estimated net worth of $7.19 billion and was ranked 297th on the Bloomberg Billionaires Index.


title: Peter Thiel

text: He worked as a securities lawyer at Sullivan & Cromwell, as a speechwriter for former U.S. Secretary of Education William Bennett and as a derivatives trader at Credit Suisse. He founded Thiel Capital Management in 1996. He co-founded PayPal with Max Levchin and Luke Nosek in 1998, serving as chief executive officer until its sale to eBay in 2002 for $1.5 billion.


title: Peter Thiel

text: After PayPal, he founded Clarium Capital, a global macro hedge fund based in San Francisco. In 2003, he launched Palantir Technologies, a big data analysis company, serving as its chairman since its inception. In 2005, he launched Founders Fund with PayPal partners Ken Howery and Luke Nosek. Earlier, Thiel became Facebook's first outside investor when he acquired a 10.2% stake for $500,000 in August 2004. He sold the majority of his shares in Facebook for over $1 billion in 2012, but remains on the board of directors. He co-founded Valar Ventures in 2010; co-founded Mithril Capital, serving as investment committee chair, in 2012; and served as a part-time partner at Y Combinator from 2015 to 2017.


title: Peter Thiel

text: Through the Thiel Foundation, Thiel governs the grant-making bodies Breakout Labs and Thiel Fellowship, and funds non-profit research into artificial intelligence, life extension, and seasteading. In 2016, Thiel confirmed that he had funded Hulk Hogan in the "Bollea v. Gawker" lawsuit because Gawker had previously outed Thiel as gay. The lawsuit eventually bankrupted Gawker and led to founder Nick Denton declaring bankruptcy. Thiel is a conservative libertarian who has made substantial donations to American right-wing figures and causes.


title: Peter Thiel

text: Thiel was born in Frankfurt am Main, West Germany, on 11 October 1967, to Klaus Friedrich Thiel and his wife Susanne Thiel. The family migrated to the United States when Peter was one year old and lived in Cleveland, Ohio, where his father worked as a chemical engineer. Klaus then worked for various mining companies, creating an itinerant upbringing for Thiel and his younger brother, Patrick Michael Thiel. Thiel's mother became a U.S. citizen, but his father did not.


title: Peter Thiel

text: Before settling in Foster City, California, in 1977, the Thiels lived in South Africa and South West Africa (modern-day Namibia). Peter changed elementary schools seven times. He attended a strict establishment in Swakopmund that required students to wear uniforms and utilized corporal punishment, such as striking students' hands with a ruler. This experience instilled a distaste for uniformity and regimentation later reflected in his support for individualism and libertarianism.


title: Peter Thiel

text: Thiel played "Dungeons & Dragons", was an avid reader of science fiction, with Isaac Asimov and Robert A. Heinlein among his favorite authors, and a fan of J. R. R. Tolkien's works, stating as an adult that he had read "The Lord of the Rings" over ten times. Six firms (Palantir Technologies, Valar Ventures, Mithril Capital, Lembas LLC, Rivendell LLC and Arda Capital) that he founded adopted names originating from Tolkien.


title: Peter Thiel

text: Thiel excelled in mathematics and scored first in a California-wide mathematics competition while attending Bowditch Middle School in Foster City. At San Mateo High School, he read Ayn Rand, admired the optimism and anti-communism of then-President Ronald Reagan, and became valedictorian of his graduating class in 1985.


title: Peter Thiel

text: He studied philosophy at Stanford University. During that time, debates on identity politics and political correctness were ongoing. A "Western Culture" program, which was criticized by "The Rainbow Agenda" because of a perceived over-representation of the achievements of European men, was replaced with a "Culture, Ideas and Values" course, which instead pushed diversity and multiculturalism. This replacement provoked controversy on the campus and led to Thiel co-founding "The Stanford Review", a conservative and libertarian newspaper, in 1987 with funding from Irving Kristol. Thiel served as "The Stanford Review's" first editor-in-chief and remained in that post until completing his Bachelor of Arts in 1989. Over the years, Thiel has continued that relationship, consulting with the top editorial staff several times a year, hosting events at his house, donating to the newspaper and placing graduating students in internships or jobs within his network.


title: Peter Thiel

text: Thiel enrolled in Stanford Law School and earned his Juris Doctor degree in 1992.<ref name="Paypal,-Inc-Jan-2002-S-1/A"></ref>


title: Peter Thiel

text: While at Stanford, Thiel met René Girard, whose mimetic theory influenced him. Mimetic theory posits that human behavior is based upon mimesis, and that imitation can engender pointless conflict. Girard notes the productive potential of competition: "It is because of this unprecedented capacity to promote competition within limits that always remain socially, if not individually, acceptable that we have all the amazing achievements of the modern world," but states that competition stifles progress once it becomes an end in itself: "rivals are more apt to forget about whatever objects are the cause of the rivalry and instead become more fascinated with one another." Thiel applied this theory to his personal life and business ventures, stating: "The big problem with competition is that it focuses us on the people around us, and while we get better at the things we're competing on, we lose sight of anything that's important, or transcendent, or truly meaningful in our world."


title: Peter Thiel

text: After graduating from Stanford Law School, Thiel clerked for Judge James Larry Edmondson of the United States Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit. Thiel then worked as a securities lawyer for Sullivan & Cromwell in New York. He left the law firm after seven months and three days, citing a lack of transcendental value in his work. He then took a job as a derivatives trader in currency options at Credit Suisse. He joined them in 1993 while also working as a speechwriter for former United States Secretary of Education William Bennett, before returning to California in 1996 to seek a more meaningful occupation.


title: Peter Thiel

text: Upon returning to the Bay Area, Thiel noticed that the development of the internet and personal computer had launched the dot-com boom. With financial support from friends and family, he raised $1 million toward the establishment of Thiel Capital Management and embarked on his venture capital career. Early on, he experienced a setback after investing $100,000 in his friend Luke Nosek's unsuccessful web-based calendar project. His luck changed when Nosek's friend Max Levchin introduced him to his cryptography-related company idea, which later became their first venture called Confinity in 1998.


title: Peter Thiel

text: With Confinity, Thiel realized they could develop software to bridge a gap in making online payments. Although the use of credit cards and expanding automated teller machine networks provided consumers with more payment options, not all merchants had the necessary hardware to accept credit cards. Thus, consumers had to pay with exact cash or check. Thiel wanted to create a type of digital wallet for consumer convenience and security by encrypting data on digital devices, and in 1999 Confinity launched PayPal.


title: Peter Thiel

text: PayPal promised to open up new possibilities for handling money. Thiel viewed PayPal's mission as liberating people from the erosion of the value of their currencies due to inflation. Thiel spoke in 1999:


title: Peter Thiel

text: When PayPal launched at a press conference in 1999, representatives from Nokia and Deutsche Bank sent $3 million in venture funding to Thiel using PayPal on their PalmPilots. PayPal then continued to grow through mergers in 2000 with Elon Musk's online financial services company X.com, and with Pixo, a company specializing in mobile commerce. These mergers allowed PayPal to expand into the wireless phone market, and transformed it into a safer and more user-friendly tool by enabling users to transfer money via a free online registration and email rather than by exchanging bank account information.


title: Peter Thiel

text: PayPal went public on 15 February 2002 and was sold to eBay for $1.5 billion in October of that year. Thiel remained CEO of the company until the sale. His 3.7% stake in the company was worth $55 million at the time of acquisition. In Silicon Valley circles, Thiel is colloquially referred to as the "Don of the PayPal Mafia".


title: Peter Thiel

text: Thiel used $10 million of his proceeds to create Clarium Capital Management, a global macro hedge fund focusing on directional and liquid instruments in currencies, interest rates, commodities, and equities. Thiel stated that "the big, macroeconomic idea that we had at Clarium—the idée fixe—was the peak-oil theory, which was basically that the world was running out of oil, and that there were no easy alternatives."


title: Peter Thiel

text: In 2003, Thiel successfully bet that the United States dollar would weaken. In 2004, Thiel spoke of the dot-com bubble having migrated, in effect, into a growing bubble in the financial sector, and specified General Electric and Walmart as vulnerable. In 2005, Clarium saw a 57.1% return as Thiel predicted that the dollar would rally.


title: Peter Thiel

text: However, Clarium faltered in 2006 with a 7.8% loss. During this time, the firm sought to profit in the long-term from its petrodollar analysis, which foresaw the impending decline in oil supplies and the unsustainable bubble growing in the U.S. housing market. Clarium's assets under management grew after achieving a 40.3% return in 2007 to more than $7 billion by 2008, but fell as financial markets collapsed near the start of 2009. By 2011, after missing out on the economic rebound, many key investors pulled out, reducing the value of Clarium's assets to $350 million, two thirds of which was Thiel's money.


title: Peter Thiel

text: In May 2003, Thiel incorporated Palantir Technologies, a big data analysis company named after the Tolkien artifact. He continues to serve as its chairman as of 2022. Thiel stated that the idea for the company was based on the realization that "the approaches that PayPal had used to fight fraud could be extended into other contexts, like fighting terrorism". He also stated that, after the September 11 attacks, the debate in the United States was "will we have more security with less privacy or less security with more privacy?". He envisioned Palantir as providing data mining services to government intelligence agencies that were maximally unintrusive and traceable.


title: Peter Thiel

text: Palantir's first backer was the Central Intelligence Agency's venture capital arm In-Q-Tel. The company steadily grew and in 2015 was valued at $20 billion, with Thiel being the company's largest shareholder.


title: Peter Thiel

text: In August 2004, Thiel made a $500,000 angel investment in Facebook for a 10.2% stake in the company and joined Facebook's board. This was the first outside investment in Facebook, and valued the company at $4.9 million. As a board member, Thiel was not actively involved in Facebook's operations. He provided help with timing the various rounds of funding and Zuckerberg credited Thiel with helping him time Facebook's 2007 Series D, which closed before the 2008 financial crisis.


title: Peter Thiel

text: In his book "The Facebook Effect", David Kirkpatrick outlines how Thiel came to make this investment: Napster co-founder Sean Parker, who at the time had assumed the title of "President" of Facebook, was seeking investors. Parker approached Reid Hoffman, the CEO of work-based social network LinkedIn. Hoffman liked Facebook but declined to become lead investor because of the potential for conflict of interest. Hoffman directed Parker to Thiel, whom he knew from their PayPal days. Thiel met Parker and Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg. Thiel and Zuckerberg got along well and Thiel agreed to lead Facebook's seed round with $500,000 for 10.2% of the company. The investment was originally in the form of a convertible note, to be converted to equity if Facebook reached 1.5 million users by the end of 2004. Although Facebook narrowly missed the target, Thiel allowed the loan to be converted to equity anyway. Thiel said of his investment:


title: Peter Thiel

text: I was comfortable with them pursuing their original vision. And it was a very reasonable valuation. I thought it was going to be a pretty safe investment.


title: Peter Thiel

text: In September 2010, Thiel, while expressing skepticism about the potential for growth in the consumer Internet sector, argued that relative to other Internet companies, Facebook (which then had a secondary market valuation of $30 billion) was comparatively undervalued.


title: Peter Thiel

text: Facebook's initial public offering was in May 2012, with a market cap of nearly $100 billion ($38 a share), at which time Thiel sold 16.8 million shares for $638 million. In August 2012, immediately upon the conclusion of the early investor lock-up period, Thiel sold almost all of his remaining stake for between $19.27 and $20.69 per share, or $395.8 million, for a total of more than $1 billion. He retained his seat on the board of directors. In 2016, he sold a little under 1 million of his shares for around $100 million. In November 2017, he sold another 160,805 shares for $29 million, putting his holdings in Facebook at 59,913 Class A shares. As of April 2020, he owned less than 10,000 shares in Facebook.


title: Peter Thiel

text: On 7 February 2022, Thiel announced he would not stand for re-election to the board of Facebook owner Meta at the 2022 annual stockholders' meeting and will leave after serving 17 years in order to support pro Donald Trump candidates in the 2022 United States elections.


title: Peter Thiel

text: In 2005, Thiel created Founders Fund, a San Francisco-based venture capital fund. Other partners in the fund include Sean Parker, Ken Howery, and Luke Nosek.


title: Peter Thiel

text: In addition to Facebook, Thiel made early-stage investments in numerous startups (personally or through Founders Fund), including Airbnb, Slide.com, LinkedIn, Friendster, RapLeaf, Geni.com, Yammer, Yelp Inc., Spotify, Powerset, Practice Fusion, MetaMed, Vator, SpaceX, Palantir Technologies, IronPort, Votizen, Asana, Big Think, CapLinked, Quora, Nanotronics Imaging, Rypple, TransferWise, Stripe, Block.one, and AltSchool.


title: Peter Thiel

text: In 2017, Founders Fund bought about $15–20 million worth of bitcoin. In January 2018, the firm told investors that due to the cryptocurrency's surge the holdings were worth hundreds of millions of dollars.


title: Peter Thiel

text: Also in 2017, Thiel was one of the first outside investors in Clearview AI, a facial recognition technology startup that has raised concerns in the tech world and media for its risks of weaponization.


title: Peter Thiel

text: Through Valar Ventures, an internationally focused venture firm he cofounded with Andrew McCormack and James Fitzgerald, Thiel was an early investor in Xero, a software firm headquartered in New Zealand. Valar Ventures also invested in New Zealand-based companies Pacific Fibre and Booktrack.


title: Peter Thiel

text: In June 2012, he launched Mithril Capital Management, named after the fictitious metal in "The Lord of the Rings", with Jim O'Neill and Ajay Royan. Unlike Clarium Capital, Mithril Capital, a fund with $402 million at the time of launch, targets companies that are beyond the startup stage and ready to scale up.


title: Peter Thiel

text: In March 2015, Thiel joined Y Combinator as one of 10 part-time partners. In November 2017, it was reported that Y Combinator had severed its ties with Thiel.


title: Peter Thiel

text: In May 2016, Thiel confirmed in an interview with "The New York Times" that he had paid $10 million in legal expenses to finance several lawsuits brought by others, including a lawsuit by Terry Bollea (Hulk Hogan) against Gawker Media for invasion of privacy, intentional infliction of emotional distress, and infringement of personality rights after Gawker made sections of a sex tape involving Bollea public. The jury awarded Bollea $140 million, and Gawker announced it was permanently closing due to the lawsuit in August 2016. Thiel referred to his financial support of Bollea's case as one of the "greater philanthropic things that I've done."


title: Peter Thiel

text: Thiel said he was motivated to sue Gawker after they published a 2007 article publicly outing him, headlined "Peter Thiel is totally gay, people." Thiel stated that Gawker articles about others, including his friends, had "ruined people's lives for no reason," and said, "It's less about revenge and more about specific deterrence." In response to criticism that his funding of lawsuits against Gawker could restrict the freedom of the press, Thiel cited his donations to the to Protect Journalists and stated, "I refuse to believe that journalism means massive privacy violations. I think much more highly of journalists than that. It's precisely because I respect journalists that I do not believe they are endangered by fighting back against Gawker."


title: Peter Thiel

text: On 15 August 2016, Thiel published an opinion piece in "The New York Times" in which he argued that his defense of online privacy went beyond Gawker. He highlighted his support for the Intimate Privacy Protection Act, and said that athletes and business executives have the right to stay in the closet as long as they want to.


title: Peter Thiel

text: Thiel is a self-described conservative libertarian, though more recently he has espoused support for national conservatism, and criticized economically liberal attitudes towards free trade and big tech. In 2019, Thiel called Google "seemingly treasonous" and urged a government investigation, citing Google's work with China and asking whether DeepMind or Google's senior management had been "infiltrated" by foreign intelligence agencies.


title: Peter Thiel

text: Thiel is a member of the Steering Committee of the Bilderberg Group, a private, annual gathering of intellectual figures, political leaders, and business executives.


title: Peter Thiel

text: Thiel, who is gay, has supported mostly conservative gay rights causes such as the American Foundation for Equal Rights and GOProud. He invited conservative columnist and friend Ann Coulter to Homocon 2010 as a guest speaker. Coulter later dedicated her 2011 book, "", to Thiel. Thiel is mentioned in the acknowledgments of Coulter's "". In 2012, Thiel donated $10,000 to Minnesotans United for All Families, in order to fight Minnesota Amendment 1 that proposed to ban marriage between same-sex couples there.


title: Peter Thiel

text: In 2009, it was reported that Thiel helped fund college student James O'Keefe's "Taxpayers Clearing House" video—a satirical look at the Wall Street bailout. O'Keefe went on to produce the ACORN undercover sting videos but, through a spokesperson, Thiel denied involvement in the ACORN sting.


title: Peter Thiel

text: In July 2012, Thiel made a $1 million donation to the Club for Growth, a fiscally conservative 501(c)(4) organization, becoming the group's largest contributor. Club for Growth is a conservative organization with an agenda focused on cutting taxes and other economic issues.


title: Peter Thiel

text: Thiel is a member of the Republican Party. He contributes to both Libertarian and Republican candidates and causes.


title: Peter Thiel

text: In December 2007, Thiel endorsed Ron Paul for President. After Paul failed to secure the Republican nomination, Thiel contributed to the John McCain campaign.


title: Peter Thiel

text: In 2010, Thiel supported Meg Whitman in her unsuccessful bid for the governorship of California. He contributed the maximum allowable $25,900 to the Whitman campaign.


title: Peter Thiel

text: In 2012, Thiel, along with Nosek and Scott Banister, put their support behind the Endorse Liberty Super PAC. Collectively they gave $3.9 million to Endorse Liberty, whose purpose was to promote Ron Paul. As of 31 January 2012, Endorse Liberty reported spending about $3.3 million promoting Paul by setting up two YouTube channels, buying ads from Google, Facebook and StumbleUpon, and building a presence on the Web. After Paul again failed to secure the nomination, Thiel contributed to the Mitt Romney/Paul Ryan presidential ticket of 2012.


title: Peter Thiel

text: Thiel initially supported Carly Fiorina's campaign during the 2016 GOP presidential primary elections. After Fiorina dropped out, Thiel supported Donald Trump and became one of the California delegates for Trump's nomination. He was a headline speaker during the convention, during which he announced that he was "proud to be gay," for which the assembled Republicans cheered. On 15 October 2016, Thiel announced a $1.25 million donation in support of Donald Trump's presidential campaign. Thiel stated to "The New York Times": "I didn't give him any money for a long time because I didn't think it mattered, and then the campaign asked me to." After Trump's victory, Thiel was named to the executive committee of the President-elect's transition team.


title: Peter Thiel

text: Thiel also has his own political-action committee, Free Forever, which is committed to supporting political candidates who support stricter border control, restrictive immigration policy, funds for veterans, and anti-interventionist foreign policy, among other things.


title: Peter Thiel

text: By February 2022, Thiel was one of the largest donors to Republican candidates in the 2022 election campaign with more than $20.4 million in contributions. He supported 16 senatorial and congressional candidates, several of whom were proponents of the falsehood that there was significant voter fraud in the 2020 election. Two of said senatorial candidates (Blake Masters and J. D. Vance) were also tech investors who had previously worked for Thiel.


title: Peter Thiel

text: In 2006, Thiel provided $100,000 of matching funds to back the Singularity Challenge donation drive of the Singularity Institute for Artificial Intelligence (now known as the Machine Intelligence Research Institute), a nonprofit organization that promotes the development of friendly artificial intelligence. He provided half of the $400,000 matching funds for the 2007 donation drive, and as of 2013 the Thiel Foundation had donated over $1 million to the institute. Additionally, he has spoken at multiple Singularity Summits. At the 2009 Singularity Summit, he said his greatest concern is the technological singularity not arriving soon enough.


title: Peter Thiel

text: In December 2015, OpenAI announced that Thiel was one of their financial backers, a nonprofit company aimed at the safe development of artificial general intelligence.


title: Peter Thiel

text: Thiel also backed DeepMind, a UK start-up that was acquired by Google in early 2014 for £400 million.


title: Peter Thiel

text: In September 2006, Thiel announced that he would donate $3.5 million to foster anti-aging research through the non-profit Methuselah Mouse Prize foundation. He gave the following reasons for his pledge: "Rapid advances in biological science foretell of a treasure trove of discoveries this century, including dramatically improved health and longevity for all. I'm backing Dr. [Aubrey] de Grey, because I believe that his revolutionary approach to aging research will accelerate this process, allowing many people alive today to enjoy radically longer and healthier lives for themselves and their loved ones." As of February 2017, he had donated over $7 million to the foundation.


title: Peter Thiel

text: When asked "What is the biggest achievement that you haven't achieved yet?" by the moderator of a discussion panel at the Venture Alpha West 2014 conference, Thiel said he wants to make progress on anti-aging research. Thiel also said that he is registered to be cryonically preserved, meaning that he would be subject to low-temperature preservation in case of his legal death in hopes that he might be successfully revived by future medical technology, and is signed up with the Alcor Life Extension Foundation.


title: Peter Thiel

text: On 15 April 2008, Thiel pledged $500,000 to the newly created non-profit Seasteading Institute, directed by Patri Friedman, whose mission is "to establish permanent, autonomous ocean communities to enable experimentation and innovation with diverse social, political, and legal systems." At one of the institute's conferences, he described seasteading as "one of the few technological frontiers that has the promise to create a new space for human freedom." In 2011, Thiel gave $1.25 million to the Seasteading Institute, but resigned from its board the same year. In a 2017 interview with "The New York Times", Thiel said seasteads are "not quite feasible from an engineering perspective" and "still very far in the future".


title: Peter Thiel

text: On 29 September 2010, Thiel created the Thiel Fellowship, which annually awards $100,000 to 20 people under the age of 23 in order to spur them to drop out of college and create their own ventures. According to Thiel, for many young people, college is the path to take when they have no idea what to do with their lives:


title: Peter Thiel

text: In November 2011, the Thiel Foundation announced the creation of Breakout Labs, a grant-making program intended "to fill the funding gap that exists for innovative research outside the confines of an academic institution, large corporation, or government." It offers grants of up to $350,000 to science-focused start-ups, "with no strings attached". In April 2012, Breakout Labs announced its first set of grantees. In total, 12 startups received funding, for a total of $4.5 million in grants. One of the first ventures to receive funding from Breakout Labs was 3Scan, a tissue imaging platform.


title: Peter Thiel

text: The Thiel Foundation is a supporter of the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ), which promotes the right of journalists to report the news freely without fear of reprisal. Beginning in 2008, Thiel has donated over $1 million to the CPJ. He is also a supporter of the Human Rights Foundation, which organizes the Oslo Freedom Forum. In 2011 he was a featured speaker at the Oslo Freedom Forum, and the Thiel Foundation was one of the event's main sponsors.


title: Peter Thiel

text: In 2011, Thiel made a NZ$1 million donation to an appeal fund for the casualties of the Christchurch earthquake.


title: Peter Thiel

text: Thiel married his long-time partner Matt Danzeisen in October 2017, in Vienna, Austria. Danzeisen works as a portfolio manager at Thiel Capital.


title: Peter Thiel

text: Thiel is a self-described Christian and a promoter of René Girard's Christian anthropology. He grew up in an evangelical household but, as of 2011, describes his religious beliefs as "somewhat heterodox", and stated: "I believe Christianity is true but I don't sort of feel a compelling need to convince other people of that." Thiel has participated in Veritas Forum events with the noted theologian N. T. Wright discussing religion, politics, and technology.


title: Peter Thiel

text: During his time at Stanford University, Thiel attended a lecture given by René Girard. Girard, a Catholic, explained the role of sacrifice and the scapegoat mechanism in resolving social conflict, which appealed to Thiel as it offered a basis for his Christian faith without the fundamentalism of his parents.


title: Peter Thiel

text: Thiel began playing chess at the age of six, and was at one time one of the strongest junior players in the United States. He holds the title of Life Master, but has not competed since 2003. On 30 November 2016, Thiel made the ceremonial first move in the first tiebreak game of the World Chess Championship 2016 between Sergey Karjakin and Magnus Carlsen.


title: Peter Thiel

text: Thiel is an occasional commentator on CNBC, having appeared on both "Closing Bell" with Kelly Evans, and "Squawk Box" with Becky Quick. He has been interviewed twice by Charlie Rose on PBS. He has also contributed articles to "The Wall Street Journal", "First Things", "Forbes", and "Policy Review", a journal formerly published by the Hoover Institution, on whose board he sits.


title: Peter Thiel

text: In "The Social Network", Thiel was portrayed by Wallace Langham. He described the film as "wrong on many levels".


title: Peter Thiel

text: Thiel was the inspiration for the Peter Gregory character on HBO's "Silicon Valley". Thiel said of Gregory, "I liked him... I think eccentric is always better than evil".


title: Peter Thiel

text: Jonas Lüscher stated in an interview with "Basellandschaftliche Zeitung" that he based the character Tobias Erkner in his novel "Kraft" ("Force") on Thiel.


title: Peter Thiel

text: Thiel was a German citizen by birth, and became an American citizen by naturalization. He had received permanent residency in New Zealand in 2007. He had visited the country on four occasions prior to his application for citizenship, and had spent 12 days in New Zealand, fewer than the typical residency requirement of 1350 days. When he applied, he stated he had no intention of living in New Zealand, which is a criterion for citizenship. Then-Minister of Internal Affairs Nathan Guy waived those normal requirements, under an "exceptional circumstances" clause of the Citizenships Act.


title: Peter Thiel

text: He became a New Zealand citizen in 2011, which became public in 2017. In 2015, he purchased a 193-hectare estate near Wānaka, which fitted the classification of "sensitive land" and required foreign buyers to obtain permission from New Zealand's Overseas Investment Office. Thiel did not require permission as he was a citizen.


title: Peter Thiel

text: Thiel's application cited his contribution to the economy—he had founded a venture capital fund in Auckland before applying, and invested $7 million in two local companies—as well as a $1 million donation to the 2011 Christchurch earthquake appeal fund. Rod Drury, founder of Xero, also provided a formal reference for Thiel's application. Thiel's case was cited by critics as an example of how New Zealand passports can be bought, something the New Zealand government denied. At the time that his citizenship was revealed, "The New Zealand Herald" came out with the report that the New Zealand Defence Force, the Security Intelligence Service and the Government Communications and Security Bureau have long-standing links with Thiel's Palantir.


title: Peter Thiel

text: In 2021 it was revealed by ProPublica that Thiel had purchased 1.7 million founders shares in the entity that would become PayPal using $1,700 in a Roth IRA in 1999. Due to the rapid growth in the value of the shares as PayPal grew and was later acquired by eBay, it allowed Thiel to turn his $1700 Roth IRA into an account worth more than $5 billion as of 2019. Most of this increase in the value of the Roth was due to him re-investing his PayPal proceeds into companies like Palantir and Facebook which grew quickly after his investment. If Thiel waits until 2027, he can withdraw the entire $5 billion+ amount tax free.


title: Peter Thiel

text: “The Straussian Moment,” an essay written by Thiel in 2004, is sometimes considered to be a fundamental text in his political thinking, and was the subject of a 2019 interview at the Hoover Institution. The essay draws on several thinkers and political theorists and argues that the September 11 attacks upset “the entire political and military framework of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries,” and therefore “a reexamination of the foundations of modern politics” was needed.


title: Peter Thiel

text: Thiel explained in a 2009 essay that he had come to "no longer believe that freedom and democracy are compatible", due in large part to welfare beneficiaries and women in general being "notoriously tough for libertarians" constituencies, and that he had focused efforts on new technologies (namely cyberspace, space colonization and seasteading) that could create "a new space for freedom" beyond current politics. Said essay has been referenced by Curtis Yarvin and Nick Land, the main theorists of the neo-reactionary movement, in their writings.


title: Peter Thiel

text: In a 2015 conversation with Tyler Cowen, Thiel claimed that innovative breakthroughs were happening in computing/IT and not the physical world. He laments the lack of progress in space travel, high-speed transit, and medical devices. As a cause for the discrepancy he says: "I would say that we lived in a world in which bits were unregulated and atoms were regulated."


title: Peter Thiel

text: In 1995, the Independent Institute published "The Diversity Myth: Multiculturalism and the Politics of Intolerance at Stanford", which Thiel co-authored along with fellow tech entrepreneur David O. Sacks, and with a foreword by the late Emory University historian Elizabeth Fox-Genovese. The book is critical of political correctness and multiculturalism in higher education and alleges that it has diluted academic rigor. Thiel and Sacks' writings drew criticism from then-Stanford Provost Condoleezza Rice and then-Stanford President Gerhard Casper in describing Thiel and Sacks' view of Stanford as "a cartoon, not a description of our freshman curriculum" and their commentary as "demagoguery, pure and simple."


title: Peter Thiel

text: In 2016, Thiel apologized for two statements he made in the book: 1) "The purpose of the rape crisis movement seems as much about vilifying men as about raising 'awareness'" and 2) "But since a multicultural rape charge may indicate nothing more than belated regret, a woman might 'realize' that she had been 'raped' the next day or even many days later." He stated: "More than two decades ago, I co-wrote a book with several insensitive, crudely argued statements. As I've said before, I wish I'd never written those things. I'm sorry for it. Rape in all forms is a crime. I regret writing passages that have been taken to suggest otherwise."


title: Peter Thiel

text: In Spring 2012, Thiel taught CS 183: Startup at Stanford University. Notes for the course, taken by student Blake Masters, led to a book titled "Zero to One: Notes on Startups, or How to Build the Future" by Thiel and Masters, which was released in September 2014. (Thiel would later go on to endorse Masters' campaign in the 2022 United States Senate election in Arizona and spend more than $10 million in its support.)


title: Peter Thiel

text: Derek Thompson, writing for "The Atlantic", stated "Zero to One" "might be the best business book I've read". He described it as a "self-help book for entrepreneurs, bursting with bromides" but also as a "lucid and profound articulation of capitalism and success in the 21st century economy."


title: Peter Thiel

text: Thiel also has a chapter giving advice in Tim Ferriss' self-help book "Tools of Titans: The Tactics, Routines, and Habits of Billionaires, Icons, and World-Class Performers".


title: Foo Fighters

text: Foo Fighters are an American rock band formed in Seattle in 1994. Foo Fighters was initially formed as a one-man project by former Nirvana drummer Dave Grohl. Following the success of the eponymous debut album, Grohl (lead vocals, guitar) recruited a band consisting of Nate Mendel (bass guitar), William Goldsmith (drums), and Pat Smear (guitar). After a succession of lineup changes, including the departures of Goldsmith and Smear, the band formed its core lineup in 1999 consisting of Grohl, Mendel, Chris Shiflett (guitar), and Taylor Hawkins (drums). In 2005 Smear returned to the band and in 2017 Rami Jaffee joined the band performing the keyboards and piano.


title: Foo Fighters

text: Prior to the release of Foo Fighters' 1995 debut album "Foo Fighters", which featured Grohl as the only official member, Grohl recruited bassist Nate Mendel and drummer William Goldsmith, both formerly of Sunny Day Real Estate, as well as Nirvana touring guitarist Pat Smear. The band began with performances in Portland, Oregon. Goldsmith quit during the recording of their second album, "The Colour and the Shape" (1997); most of the drum parts were re-recorded by Grohl. Smear departed soon afterward but appeared as a guest with the band frequently from 2005; he rejoined in 2010.


title: Foo Fighters

text: Smear and Goldsmith were replaced by Franz Stahl and Taylor Hawkins; Stahl was fired before the recording of the group's third album, "There Is Nothing Left to Lose" (1999). The band briefly continued as a trio until Chris Shiflett joined on guitar after the completion of "There Is Nothing Left to Lose". Foo Fighters released their fourth album, "One by One", in 2002. It was followed with the two-disc "In Your Honor" (2005), which was split between acoustic songs and heavier material. Foo Fighters released their sixth album, "Echoes, Silence, Patience & Grace", in 2007.


title: Foo Fighters

text: For Foo Fighters' seventh studio album, "Wasting Light" (2011), produced by Butch Vig, Smear returned as a full member. "Sonic Highways" (2014) was released as the soundtrack to directed by Grohl. "Concrete and Gold" (2017) was the second Foo Fighters album to reach number one in the United States and their first studio album to feature longtime session and touring keyboardist Rami Jaffee as a full member. The band's tenth album, "Medicine at Midnight" (2021), was the last to feature Hawkins, who died in March 2022.


title: Foo Fighters

text: Over the course of their career, Foo Fighters have won 15 Grammy Awards, including Best Rock Album five times, making them among the most successful rock acts in Grammy history. In 2021, the band was announced as recipients of the first-ever "Global Icon" award at the 2021 MTV Video Music Awards. They were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2021, their first year of eligibility.


title: Foo Fighters

text: In 1990, Dave Grohl joined the grunge band Nirvana as drummer. During tours, he took a guitar with him and wrote songs, but was too intimidated to share them with the band; he was "in awe" of the songs written by frontman Kurt Cobain. Grohl occasionally booked studio time to record demos and covers, issuing an album of demos, "Pocketwatch", under the pseudonym Late! in 1992.


title: Foo Fighters

text: Nirvana disbanded after the death of Cobain in 1994. Grohl received offers to work with various artists; press rumors indicated he might join Pearl Jam, and he almost accepted a position as drummer in Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers. Grohl later said: "I was supposed to just join another band and be a drummer the rest of my life. I thought that I would rather do what no one expected me to do." Grohl instead entered Robert Lang Studios in October 1994 to record 15 of his own songs. With the exception of a guitar part on "X-Static", played by Greg Dulli of the Afghan Whigs, Grohl played every instrument and sang every vocal. He completed an album's worth of material in five days and handed out cassette copies of the sessions to his friends for feedback.


title: Foo Fighters

text: Grohl hoped to stay anonymous and release the recordings in a limited run under the name Foo Fighters, taken from foo fighter, a World War II term for unidentified flying objects. He hoped the name would lead listeners to assume the music was made by several people. He said later: "Had I actually considered this to be a career, I probably would have called it something else, because it's the stupidest fucking band name in the world." The demo tape circulated in the industry, creating interest among record labels.


title: Foo Fighters

text: Grohl formed a band to support the album. He spoke to Nirvana bassist Krist Novoselic about joining the group, but they decided against it; Grohl said it would have felt "really natural" for them to work together, but would have been "weird" for the others and place more pressure on Grohl. Instead, Grohl recruited bassist Nate Mendel and drummer William Goldsmith, both of the recently disbanded Seattle group Sunny Day Real Estate. Nirvana touring guitarist Pat Smear joined as second guitarist. Grohl licensed the album to Capitol Records, releasing it on his new label, Roswell Records.


title: Foo Fighters

text: Foo Fighters made their live public debut on February 23, 1995, at the Jambalaya Club in Arcata, California, followed by performances at Satyricon in Portland on March 3 and the Velvet Elvis in Seattle on March 4. The show on March 3 had been part of a benefit gig for the investigation of the rape and murder of Gits singer Mia Zapata. Grohl refused to do interviews or tour large venues to promote the album. Foo Fighters undertook their first major tour in the spring of 1995, opening for Mike Watt. The band's first single, "This Is a Call", was released in June 1995, and its debut album "Foo Fighters" was released the next month. "I'll Stick Around", "For All the Cows", and "Big Me" were released as subsequent singles. The band spent the following months on tour, including their first appearance at the Reading Festival in England in August.


title: Foo Fighters

text: After touring through the spring of 1996, Foo Fighters entered Bear Creek Studio in Woodinville, Washington, with producer Gil Norton to record its second album. While Grohl once again wrote all the songs, the rest of the band collaborated on the arrangements. With the sessions nearly complete, Grohl took the rough mixes to Los Angeles, intending to finish his vocal and guitar parts. While there, Grohl realized that he was not happy with the drumming and replaced most of Goldsmith's drum tracks with his own. Though Grohl hoped that Goldsmith would still play on the tour, Goldsmith felt betrayed and left the band.


title: Foo Fighters

text: In need of a replacement for Goldsmith, Grohl contacted Alanis Morissette's touring drummer Taylor Hawkins for a recommendation. Grohl was surprised when Hawkins volunteered himself. Hawkins made his debut with the group in time for the release of its second album, "The Colour and the Shape", in May 1997. The album included the singles "Monkey Wrench", "Everlong", "My Hero", and "Walking After You".


title: Foo Fighters

text: Smear left Foo Fighters in 1997, citing exhaustion and burnout, and was replaced by Grohl's former Scream bandmate Franz Stahl. Stahl toured with Foo Fighters for the next few months and appeared on two tracks recorded for movie soundtracks, a re-recording of "Walking After You" for "The X-Files" and A320 for "Godzilla". A B-side from the "My Hero" single, "Dear Lover", appeared in the horror film "Scream 2". The tour for "The Colour and the Shape" album in 1998 included performances at Glastonbury Festival (on the main stage) and the Reading Festival.


title: Foo Fighters

text: In 1998, Foo Fighters traveled to Grohl's home state of Virginia, to write their third album. However, Grohl and Stahl were unable to co-operate as songwriters; Grohl told "Kerrang!" in 1999, "in those few weeks it just seemed like the three of us were moving in one direction and Franz wasn't." Grohl was distraught over the decision to fire Stahl as the two had been friends since childhood. Shortly after that, Mendel called Grohl to say he was quitting to reunite with Sunny Day Real Estate, only to reverse his decision the next day. The remaining trio of Grohl, Mendel, and Hawkins spent several months recording the band's third album, "There Is Nothing Left to Lose", in Grohl's home studio. The album spawned several singles, including "Learn to Fly", the band's first to reach the US "Billboard" Hot 100. Other singles included "Stacked Actors", "Generator", "Next Year", and "Breakout".


title: Foo Fighters

text: Before the release of the album, Capitol Records president Gary Gersh was forced out of the label. Given Grohl's history with Gersh, Foo Fighters' contract had included a "key man clause" that allowed them to leave the label upon Gersh's departure. They left Capitol and signed with RCA, who later acquired the rights to the band's Capitol albums.


title: Foo Fighters

text: After recording "There Is Nothing Left to Lose" was completed, the band auditioned a number of potential guitarists and settled on Chris Shiflett, who performed with Me First and the Gimme Gimmes and California punk band No Use for a Name. Shiflett initially joined as a touring guitarist but achieved full-time status prior to the recording of the group's fourth album.


title: Foo Fighters

text: In January 2000, Nate Mendel led a benefit concert in Hollywood for AIDS denialist group Alive & Well AIDS Alternatives with a speech by founder Christine Maggiore and free copies of her self-published book, "What If Everything You Thought You Knew About AIDS Was Wrong?" Additionally, the band's official website featured a section devoted to Alive & Well. Sandra Thurman, then director of the Office of National AIDS Policy stated this was "extraordinarily irresponsible behavior" because "there is no doubt about the link between HIV and AIDS in the respected scientific community." Links and references to Alive & Well were removed from the band's website by March 2003.


title: Foo Fighters

text: Around 2001, Foo Fighters established a relationship with rock band Queen as the band (particularly Grohl and Hawkins) were fans. In March of that year, Grohl and Hawkins inducted them into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and joined them to perform the 1976 classic, "Tie Your Mother Down", with Hawkins playing drums alongside Roger Taylor. Guitarist Brian May added a guitar track to Foo Fighters' second cover of Pink Floyd's "Have a Cigar", which appeared on the soundtrack to the movie "". In 2002, guitarist May contributed guitar work to Tired of You and an outtake called Knucklehead. The bands have performed together on several occasions since, including VH1 Rock Honors and Foo Fighters' headlining concert in Hyde Park.


title: Foo Fighters

text: Near the end of 2001, the band reconvened to record its fourth album. After spending four months in a Los Angeles studio, the album "just didn't sound right" and the band had no confidence it would sell very well. With the album not reaching their expectations amid much infighting, Grohl spent some time helping Queens of the Stone Age complete their 2002 album "Songs for the Deaf". Once that album was finished and touring had started for both Foo Fighters and Queens of the Stone Age, the band was on the verge of breaking up entirely. Grohl reunited with Hawkins, Shiflett, and Mendel to play the Coachella Festival, alternating days with Queens of the Stone Age. Hawkins and Grohl talked about resuming work on "One by One" and after a very satisfying performance the following day, they agreed to stay together. The group re-recorded nearly all of the album in a ten-day stretch at Grohl's home studio in Alexandria, Virginia, the following month. The original version of "One by One", referred to by the band as Million Dollar Demos, has never been released in its entirety although seven tracks were leaked online in 2012 and 2015.


title: Foo Fighters

text: The album was released in October 2002 under the title "One by One". Singles from the album included "All My Life", "Times Like These", "Low", and "Have It All". The tour for the album included a headline performance at the 2002 Reading and Leeds Festivals.


title: Foo Fighters

text: For most of its history, the band chose to stay away from the political realm. However, in 2004, upon learning that George W. Bush's presidential campaign was using "Times Like These" at rallies, Grohl decided to lend his public support to John Kerry's campaign, saying, "There's no way of stopping the president playing your songs, so I went out and played it for John Kerry's people instead, where I thought the message would kinda make more sense." Grohl attended several Kerry rallies and occasionally performed solo acoustic sets. The entire band joined Grohl for a performance in Arizona coinciding with one of the presidential debates.


title: Foo Fighters

text: Having spent a year and a half touring behind "One by One", Grohl did not want to rush into recording another Foo Fighters record. Initially Grohl intended to write acoustic material by himself but eventually the project involved the entire band. To record its fifth album, the band shifted to Los Angeles and built a recording studio, dubbed Studio 606 West. Grohl insisted that the album be divided into two discs–one full of rock songs, the other featuring acoustic tracks. "In Your Honor" was released in June 2005. The album's singles included Best of You, DOA, Resolve, and No Way Back/Cold Day in the Sun.


title: Foo Fighters

text: During September and October 2005, the band toured with Weezer on what was billed as the Foozer Tour. Foo Fighters played a headline performance at the 2005 Reading and Leeds Festivals. On June 17, 2006, Foo Fighters performed their largest non-festival headlining concert to date at London's Hyde Park. Motörhead's Lemmy joined the band on stage to sing Shake Your Blood from Dave Grohl's "Probot" album. As a surprise performance, Brian May and Roger Taylor of Queen appeared to play part of We Will Rock You as a lead in to Tie Your Mother Down.


title: Foo Fighters

text: In further support of "In Your Honor", the band organized a short acoustic tour for the summer of 2006. Members who had performed with them in late 2005 appeared, such as Pat Smear, Petra Haden on violin and backing vocals, Drew Hester on percussion, and Rami Jaffee of The Wallflowers on keyboard and piano. While much of the setlist focused on "In Your Honor"'s acoustic half, the band also used the opportunity to play lesser-known songs, such as Ain't It The Life, Floaty, and See You. The band also performed Marigold, a "Pocketwatch"-era song that was best known as a Nirvana B side.


title: Foo Fighters

text: In November 2006, the band released their first ever live CD, "Skin and Bones", featuring fifteen performances captured over a three-night stint in Los Angeles.


title: Foo Fighters

text: For the follow-up to "In Your Honor", the band recruited "The Colour and the Shape" producer Gil Norton. "Echoes, Silence, Patience & Grace" was released on September 25, 2007. The album's first single, "The Pretender", was issued to radio in early August. In mid-to-late 2007 "The Pretender" topped "Billboard"<nowiki>'</nowiki>s Modern Rock chart for a record 19 weeks. The second single, "Long Road to Ruin", was released in December 2007, supported by a music video directed by longtime collaborator Jesse Peretz (formerly of the Lemonheads). Other singles included "Let It Die" and "Cheer Up, Boys (Your Make Up Is Running)".


title: Foo Fighters

text: In October 2007, Foo Fighters started their world tour in support of the album. The band performed shows throughout the United States, Canada, Europe, Australia, New Zealand, and Asia, including headlining the Virgin Mobile Festival in Baltimore on August 9. At the European MTV Music Awards in 2007, Pat Smear confirmed his return to the band.


title: Foo Fighters

text: "Echoes, Silence, Patience & Grace" was nominated for five Grammy Awards in 2008. Foo Fighters went home with Best Rock Album and Best Hard Rock Performance (for "The Pretender"). The album was also nominated for Album of the Year, while "The Pretender" was also nominated for Record of the Year and Best Rock Song.


title: Foo Fighters

text: On June 7, 2008, the band played Wembley Stadium, London, and was joined by Jimmy Page and John Paul Jones of Led Zeppelin to play "Rock and Roll" (with Grohl on drums and Hawkins on vocals) and "Ramble On" (sung by Grohl, drums by Hawkins). As Page and Jones left the stage before a final encore of "Best of You", an ecstatic Grohl shouted "Welcome to the greatest fucking day of my whole entire life!". Throughout the tour for "Echoes, Silence, Patience & Grace", Foo Fighters had been writing and practicing new songs at sound checks. After Foo Fighters had completed this tour in September 2008, they recorded 13 new songs in studio 606, shortly after announcing a hiatus from touring (which would last until January 2011). These sessions likely lasted from late 2008 – early 2009. While the members of Foo Fighters had initially planned for their new album (composed of songs from this recording session) to have come out in 2009 with almost no touring support, they ultimately decided to shelve most of the songs from these sessions. Three of these songs were later released — "Wheels" and "Word Forward" (on their 2009 compilation album, "Greatest Hits"); and a newly recorded version of "Rope" (which ended up making the final cut of "Wasting Light").


title: Foo Fighters

text: In August 2010, the band began recording their seventh studio album with producer Butch Vig, who had previously produced the two new tracks for the band's "Greatest Hits" album. The album was recorded in Dave Grohl's garage using only analog equipment. The album won five Grammys and was nominated for six. The recording was analog to tape and used no computers, not even to mix or master. Vig said in an interview with MTV that the album was entirely analog until post-mastering. Pat Smear was present in many photos posted by Grohl on Twitter and a press release in December confirmed Smear played on every track on the album and was considered a core member of the band once again.


title: Foo Fighters

text: The first single from "Wasting Light", "Rope", was released to radio in February 2011. On April 16, 2011, Foo Fighters released an album of covers, "Medium Rare", as a limited-edition vinyl for Record Store Day. The promotion for the album was highly praised for its originality. "Wasting Light" debuted at number one on the "Billboard" 200 chart, becoming the band's first album to do so. Other singles for the album included "Walk", "Arlandria", "These Days", and "Bridge Burning".


title: Foo Fighters

text: Alongside "Wasting Light"s release, Foo Fighters released a rockumentary, directed by Academy Award-winner James Moll. The film, titled "Back and Forth", chronicles the band's career. Then current and past members, and producer Butch Vig, tell the story of the band through interviews. After debuting on March 15, 2011, at the SXSW festival in Austin, Texas, it was released on DVD three months later.


title: Foo Fighters

text: On May 21, 2011, Foo Fighters headlined the middle day of the Hangout Music Festival in Gulf Shores, Alabama. On June 4, 2011, they played a surprise set at the 2011 KROQ Weenie Roast. They also headlined two sold-out shows at the Milton Keynes National Bowl on July 2 and 3, joined on stage by artists such as Alice Cooper, Seasick Steve, and John Paul Jones. They headlined the final night at the 20th anniversary of Lollapalooza in Chicago's Grant Park on August 7, 2011, performing part of their set in a driving rainstorm.


title: Foo Fighters

text: In September 2011 before a show in Kansas City, the band performed a parody song in front of a protest by the Westboro Baptist Church. It mocked the church's opposition to homosexuality and was performed in the same faux-trucker garb that was seen in the band's Hot Buns promotional video.


title: Foo Fighters

text: It was announced on September 28, 2011, that Foo Fighters would be performing during the closing ceremony of Blizzard Entertainment's annual video game convention, BlizzCon.


title: Foo Fighters

text: On August 27, 2012, Foo Fighters ended their European tour with a headline performance at Reading and Leeds Festival. On September 5, the band performed a show at the Fillmore in Charlotte, North Carolina, as a benefit for Rock the Vote. The show, which occurred at the same time as the 2012 Democratic National Convention in Charlotte, was announced only two weeks prior. Tickets to the 2000-person capacity venue sold out in under 60 seconds, setting a record for the site. The band set another personal record during the show itself, being the longest that the band had played to date at just under 3.5 hours with a setlist of 36 songs. On September 21, the band headlined the Music Midtown Festival in Atlanta, Georgia. The following evening, they headlined the DeLuna Festival in Pensacola Beach, Florida. On September 29, the band performed at the Global Citizens' Festival before embarking on a break.


title: Foo Fighters

text: Despite initially announcing a break after supporting "Wasting Light", Grohl stated in January 2013 that the band had started writing material for an eighth studio album. On February 20, 2013, at the Brit Awards, Grohl said he was resuming work on the album the following day.


title: Foo Fighters

text: On September 6, 2013, Shiflett posted a photo to his Instagram account that indicated 13 songs were being recorded and later described it as "pretty fucking fun". Rami Jaffee has recorded parts for two songs, one of which was "In the Clear". Butch Vig, who worked with the band on "Wasting Light", confirmed via Twitter in late August 2013 that he was producing the album. The band confirmed that it would end its hiatus by playing two shows in Mexico City on December 11 and 13. On October 31, a video appeared on the official Foo Fighters YouTube channel showing a motorcyclist, later revealed to be Erik Estrada, delivering each of the band members an invitation to play in Mexico.


title: Foo Fighters

text: On January 16, 2014, a picture was posted to Foo Fighters' Facebook page with several master tapes labeled LP 8. On May 15, it was announced that the album would be released in November and that the Foo Fighters would commemorate the album and their 20th anniversary with an HBO TV series directed by Grohl titled "". Eight songs were written and recorded in eight studios in eight different American cities with video capturing the history and feel of each town. On July 30, Butch Vig revealed that the Foo Fighters had finished recording and mixing the album and that it was slated to be released a month after the premiere of the TV show.


title: Foo Fighters

text: In June 2014, the band agreed to play a show in Richmond, Virginia, that was entirely crowd-funded by fans on the website Tilt.com. The show took place on September 17 before 1,500 fans. The band played 23 songs over the course of two and a half hours. Foo Fighters announced their tour would include performances in Cape Town on December 10 and Johannesburg on December 13. The band played three performances under the alias The Holy Shits in September 2014; the first at the Concorde 2 club in Brighton, England, where Grohl invited lead singer Jay Apperley of the tribute band UK Foo Fighters on stage to sing, followed by the House of Vans and the Islington Assembly Hall. On September 14, 2014, the band performed at the closing ceremony of the Invictus Games, their first official show in England since closing Reading Festival in 2012. They closed out the 2014 VooDoo Music and Arts Festival in New Orleans on November 2, 2014, in a two and a half hour performance that included an appearance from New Orleans native Trombone Shorty, who played "This Is a Call" with the band.


title: Foo Fighters

text: On August 8, the band released a short clip of their latest work, titled 8. On August 11, the band announced that the new album would be titled "Sonic Highways" and released on November 10, 2014. An international tour, dubbed the "Sonic Highways World Tour", followed with performances in South Africa in December and South America in January 2015. It continued to Australia and New Zealand in February and March.


title: Foo Fighters

text: On May 20, 2015, the Foo Fighters were the final musical act to perform on "Late Show with David Letterman", continuing their long association with the host as he wrapped up his 33-year career in late night television. The show ended with a montage of Letterman highlights while the Foo Fighters played "Everlong", which Letterman said had significant meaning for him after his open-heart surgery in 2000. The band postponed their international tour to make the appearance; the tour resumed on May 24, with a performance at Radio 1's Big Weekend in Norwich, England.


title: Foo Fighters

text: On June 12, Grohl fell from the stage in Gothenburg, Sweden, during the group's second song, breaking his leg. The band continued playing while Grohl received medical attention, who then returned to the stage to finish the last two hours of the band's set from a chair while a medic tended to his leg. After the concert, Grohl was flown to London for surgery, requiring six metal pins to stabilize the fracture. As a result of the injury, the band canceled its remaining European tour dates.


title: Foo Fighters

text: In July, one thousand Italian fans held the Rockin' 1000 gathering in Cesena, Italy, performing "Learn to Fly" and asking Foo Fighters to come play in the town. The performance video went viral and impressed Grohl, resulting in the band appearing in Cesena on November 3.


title: Foo Fighters

text: The Foo Fighters planned to follow their international tour with a North American tour to promote "Sonic Highways", beginning with a special Fourth of July event in Washington, D.C., that would commemorate the band's 20th anniversary. The all-day event was to be held at Washington's RFK Stadium featuring performances by Joan Jett and the Blackhearts, Heart, LL Cool J, Gary Clark Jr., and Buddy Guy. Dave Grohl's injury initially led to speculation that the band would drop out of the event but they later confirmed they would perform; however, the injury did prevent them from headlining the 2015 Glastonbury Festival. The band performed for 48,000 people with Grohl in a custom-built moving throne which he claimed to have designed himself while on painkillers.


title: Foo Fighters

text: Beginning with the show on July 4, the Foo Fighters re-branded the North American tour as the Broken Leg Tour. The band continued to use the name at later North American performances. Prior to their August 21 concert at the Sprint Center in Kansas City, Missouri, the band rickrolled protesting members of the Westboro Baptist Church, as they had also done in 2011.


title: Foo Fighters

text: On November 23, 2015, a surprise release following a month-long countdown clock on the Foo Fighters' website revealed the free EP "Saint Cecilia", including a single of the same name. Alongside its release, Grohl announced that the band would be going on an indefinite hiatus.


title: Foo Fighters

text: In response to growing rumors of the band breaking up, the band released a mockumentary video in March 2016 portraying Grohl leaving the band to pursue an electronic music career and Nick Lachey (formerly of 98 Degrees) becoming the group's new singer, ending with: "For the millionth time, we're not breaking up. And nobody's going fucking solo!" In May 2016, Shiflett stated that the band still had no particular plans for reforming but assured that it would happen eventually.


title: Foo Fighters

text: Grohl announced that the band would spend much of 2017 recording their ninth studio album. On June 1, 2017, their new single "Run" was released. Run topped the US "Billboard" Mainstream Rock Songs chart the following month. The band confirmed touring keyboardist Rami Jaffee was officially the sixth member of the group. On June 20, 2017, the band announced that their new album, "Concrete and Gold", would be released in September. On August 23, 2017, The Sky Is a Neighborhood was released as the second single and topped the Mainstream Rock chart. The Line was released in promotion of the album and later as the third single in 2018. "Concrete and Gold" was officially released on September 15, 2017, produced by Greg Kurstin. The album is noted as deriving influence from Pink Floyd, Led Zeppelin, and The Beatles. "Concrete and Gold" also features Justin Timberlake on vocals for Make It Right, Shawn Stockman of Boyz II Men on backing vocals for the song Concrete and Gold, and Paul McCartney on the drums for Sunday Rain. The band began touring in June 2017, including headlining the Glastonbury Festival 2017. The tour in support of "Concrete and Gold" was extended to October 2018.


title: Foo Fighters

text: In October 2019, the band announced that they were recording their tenth studio album based on demos by Grohl. In November 2019, the band began releasing a series of EPs under the umbrella name of the "Foo Files", largely consisting of previously released B sides and live performances. By February 2020, Grohl announced that the new album was complete but by May, it was delayed indefinitely because of the COVID-19 pandemic, saying, "We've kind of shelved it for now to figure out exactly when it's going to happen."


title: Foo Fighters

text: Starting in November 2020, promotion for the album ramped up. Its title, "Medicine at Midnight", and release date, February 5, 2021, were announced. The band released three singles ahead of the album: "Shame Shame", "No Son of Mine", and "Waiting on a War". In January, the band performed at the US Presidential Inauguration of Joe Biden.


title: Foo Fighters

text: On February 10, 2021, Foo Fighters were announced as one of the 2021 Rock and Roll Hall of Fame nominees in their first year of eligibility as their debut album had been released 25 years prior. On May 12, 2021, Foo Fighters were announced as one of 6 performer inductees. For Record Store Day on July 17, 2021, the Foo Fighters released an album of disco covers, "Hail Satin", under the name Dee Gees. The album contains four Bee Gees covers, a cover of Andy Gibb's "Shadow Dancing", plus five live versions of "Medicine at Midnight" tracks.


title: Foo Fighters

text: On February 25, 2022, the Foo Fighters released a comedy horror film, "Studio 666", directed by BJ McDonnell. It stars the band members as themselves, alongside Will Forte, Whitney Cummings, Jeff Garlin, and Jenna Ortega. In the film, the Foo Fighters attempt to record an album in a haunted mansion; Grohl is possessed by a demonic spirit and the band members are killed off one by one. It was filmed in the same mansion in which the Foo Fighters had recorded "Medicine at Midnight". "Studio 666" received mixed reviews and performed poorly in its opening week. Grohl released an EP of songs from the film, "Dream Widow", on March 25, 2022.


title: Foo Fighters

text: On March 25, 2022, Hawkins died in his room at the Casa Medina hotel in Bogotá, Colombia. No cause of death was given. Hawkins had suffered chest pain, and had ten substances in his system at the time of his death, including opioids, benzodiazepines, tricyclic antidepressants, and THC, the psychoactive compound in cannabis. The Foo Fighters were scheduled to perform that night at the Estéreo Picnic Festival as part of their ongoing South American tour; the festival stage was turned into a candlelight vigil for Hawkins. A few days later, the band canceled all remaining tour dates. On June 8, the Foo Fighters announced a pair of tribute concerts to Hawkins. The first concert was on September 3 at Wembley Stadium in London, UK, and another concert was on September 27 at the Kia Forum in Los Angeles.


title: Foo Fighters

text: Foo Fighters have been described as grunge, alternative rock, post-grunge, hard rock, and pop rock. They were initially compared to Grohl's previous group, Nirvana. Grohl acknowledged that Kurt Cobain was an influence on his songwriting: "Through Kurt, I saw the beauty of minimalism and the importance of music that's stripped down." Foo Fighters also used the technique of shifting between quiet verses and loud choruses, which Grohl said was influenced by the members of Nirvana "liking The Knack, Bay City Rollers, Beatles, and ABBA as much as we liked Flipper and Black Flag, I suppose."


title: Foo Fighters

text: Writing and recording songs for their first album by himself, Grohl intended for the guitar riffs to be as rhythmic as possible. He approached the guitar in a similar manner to his drumming, assigning various drum parts to strings on the instrument. This allowed him to piece together songs easily; he said, "I could hear the song in my head before it was finished." Once Grohl assembled a full band, the members assisted in song arrangements. "Pitchfork" described Grohl and the band as "his generation's answer to Tom Petty—a consistent hit machine pumping out working-class rock."


title: Foo Fighters

text: The band members meld melodic and heavy elements. Grohl noted in 1997, "We all love music, whether it's the Beatles or Queen or punk rock. I think the lure of punk rock was the energy and immediacy; the need to thrash stuff around. But at the same time, we're all suckers for a beautiful melody, you know? So it is just natural." Grohl said in 2005, "I love being in a rock band, but I don't know if I necessarily wanna be in an alternative rock band from the 1990s for the rest of my life." Grohl noted that the band's acoustic tour was an attempt to broaden the group's sound.


title: Foo Fighters

text: Foo Fighters first received a Grammy Award for their music video for "Learn to Fly" in 2000, and they have won ten others. These include four Grammys in the Best Rock Album category for: "There Is Nothing Left to Lose"; "One by One"; "Echoes, Silence, Patience & Grace"; and "Wasting Light"; and three awards for Best Hard Rock Performance for the songs "All My Life", "The Pretender", and "White Limo". The band also received three Kerrang! Awards. At the 2011 MTV Video Music Awards, the band won Best Rock Video for "Walk". They won the Radio Contraband Major Label Artist of the Year in 2011 and 2014. The band won Song of the Year for "Something from Nothing" and Album of the Year for "Sonic Highways" both in 2014.


title: Foo Fighters

text: The band was nominated for six Grammy Awards—Album of the Year, Best Rock Performance, Best Hard Rock/Metal Performance, Best Rock Song, Best Rock Album, and Best Long Form Music Video (for "")—at the 54th Annual Grammy Awards held in February 2012. They won five of the six, losing only to Adele in the Album of the Year category.


title: Foo Fighters

text: In September 2021, the band received the first-ever Global Icon Award at that year's MTV Video Music Awards. The following month, they were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, in their first year of eligibility.


title: Jon Jones

text: Jonathan Dwight Jones (born July 19, 1987) is an American professional mixed martial artist currently signed to the Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC), in which he has competed in the light heavyweight division. He is a former two-time UFC Light Heavyweight Champion, holding the title from March 2011 to April 2015 and from December 2018 to August 2020. Jones also held the interim UFC Light Heavyweight Championship in 2016. As of November 14, 2022, he is #13 in the UFC men's pound-for-pound rankings.


title: Jon Jones

text: Jones became the youngest champion in UFC history with his title victory over Maurício Rua at age 23. He holds many UFC records in the light heavyweight division, including the most title defenses, most wins, and longest win streak. During much of his championship reign, Jones has been widely considered to be the best pound-for-pound fighter in the world. Never stopped nor outscored during his career, Jones's only professional loss is a controversial disqualification against Matt Hamill; a result that Hamill and UFC President Dana White dispute.


title: Jon Jones

text: Between 2015 and 2017, Jones was involved in several controversies and lost his title three times as a result of disciplinary action. He was first stripped of his title and removed from the official rankings by the UFC in 2015 after he was arrested on felony hit-and-run charges. His subsequent returns to the UFC in 2016 and 2017 saw him emerge victorious in title bouts against Ovince Saint Preux and Daniel Cormier, but were both cut short by Jones testing positive for banned substances and receiving further suspensions, with the latter reversed to a 'no contest'. After his 2017 suspension was lifted, Jones reclaimed the championship in 2018 by defeating Alexander Gustafsson. He voluntarily vacated the title in 2020 amid a pay dispute with White and cited intent to move up to heavyweight.


title: Jon Jones

text: Jones was born on July 19, 1987 in Rochester, New York. His father Arthur is a pastor at Mount Sinai Church of God in Christ in Binghamton, New York. Arthur discouraged Jon's fighting career, "I wanted him to preach. I tried to discourage him from being a fighter. I told him you don't want to do that. You can do other things. Be a pastor." Jon's mother, Camille, died in 2017 at the age of 55, after a long battle with diabetes.


title: Jon Jones

text: Jon was one of four children. His older brother, Arthur, is a former American football defensive lineman who played for the Baltimore Ravens, Indianapolis Colts and Washington Redskins, while his younger brother, Chandler, is an outside linebacker for the Las Vegas Raiders. His older sister, Carmen, died of a brain tumor before her 18th birthday.


title: Jon Jones

text: Before beginning his MMA career, Jones was a stand-out high school wrestler and state champion at Union-Endicott High School in upstate New York. He also played football as a defensive lineman; due to his slight frame, his coach nicknamed him "Bones". Jones won a NJCAA national championship at Iowa Central Community College. After transferring to Morrisville State College to study Criminal Justice, he dropped out of college to begin his MMA career.


title: Jon Jones

text: Jones made his professional MMA debut in April 2008. He amassed an undefeated record of 6–0 over a period of three months, finishing all of his opponents. In his last bout before signing with the UFC, Jones defeated Moyses Gabin at BCX 5 for the USKBA Light Heavyweight Championship. He won the fight via TKO in the second round.


title: Jon Jones

text: Jones made his UFC debut against Andre Gusmão at UFC 87 on August 9, 2008. Jones had accepted the deal on two weeks' notice as a late replacement for Tomasz Drwal. Jones won via unanimous decision (30–27, 29–28, and 30–27), using takedowns and unorthodox striking, such as spinning elbows and a spinning back kick.


title: Jon Jones

text: In his second UFC match, Jones took on veteran Stephan Bonnar at UFC 94 on January 31, 2009. Jones secured multiple takedowns on Bonnar, even suplexing him to the mat, and connecting with a back elbow that hurt Bonnar badly. He appeared fatigued in the third round but won the fight by unanimous decision.


title: Jon Jones

text: Jones's third fight was against Jake O'Brien at UFC 100 on July 11, 2009. Jones controlled the majority of the match and eventually secured a modified guillotine choke, causing O'Brien to tap out. In September 2009, Jones was rewarded for his victories by signing a new, four-fight contract with the UFC.


title: Jon Jones

text: On December 5, 2009, Jones fought fellow light heavyweight prospect Matt Hamill at . Jones used his wrestling to dominate Hamill, dislocating Hamill's shoulder with a takedown, and battering him with strikes. However Jones would be disqualified for the use of illegal 12-6 elbows. The Unified Rules of Mixed Martial Arts prohibited downward elbow strikes, and Jones was initially only penalized a point from the round. However Hamill was unable to continue due to his dislocated shoulder. Consequently, the replay simulation was reviewed, and showed that Jones's elbows further damaged Hamill's already bloody and lacerated nose. This marked the first time that Nevada has used its recently enacted instant replay rule, in which the referee's decision was supported by the commission, which utilized a slow-motion replay to review the elbows. UFC president Dana White was aggrieved that referee Steve Mazagatti ruled the bout as a loss for Jones, saying that it should have been a no contest. In 2019, White said he was still attempting to have the result overturned to a no contest by the Nevada State Athletic Commission.


title: Jon Jones

text: Jones fought Brandon Vera on March 21, 2010, at . He won the fight by TKO after an elbow to Vera's face followed up with various punches in the first round. The elbow delivered to stop the fight also broke Vera's face in three places. Jones also won the "Knockout of the Night" award.


title: Jon Jones

text: Jones defeated former IFL Light Heavyweight Champion Vladimir Matyushenko by TKO with elbows in 1:52 of the first round on August 1, 2010, at . Dana White promised Jones a "huge step-up in the competition", if he managed to defeat Matyushenko. Following the match with Matyushenko, White said, "Vladimir Matyushenko is a guy who I have a lot of respect for and I didn't think it was going to happen that easy. Jones is the real deal and he just catapulted himself tonight into the top eight in the world. Tonight solidified it. ... He's got to keep his head together, stay focused and keep doing all the right things in training. He's smart, good looking and bad-ass. He's going to make a lot of money -- this kid is going to do very well."


title: Jon Jones

text: After defeating Matyushenko, Jones stated that he wanted a "top-three opponent" for his next fight. Jones mentioned in an interview with "Inside MMA" that he would be facing the winner of Antônio Rogério Nogueira vs. Ryan Bader. Reports that Jones had previously been offered a match with Nogueira, but turned it down, turned out to be false. In the "Inside MMA" interview, Jones also stated that he had been informed by Dana White and Lorenzo Fertitta that if he finished his next two fights, he would likely receive a title shot.


title: Jon Jones

text: White soon confirmed that Jones would face the undefeated "Ultimate Fighter" winner Ryan Bader, on February 5, 2011, at UFC 126. Jones handed Bader his first professional loss by defeating him via submission due to a guillotine choke in the second round after dominating Bader in the first round. Jones was awarded the "Submission of the Night" bonus.


title: Jon Jones

text: Immediately after the bout with Bader, it was revealed that title contender and Jones's training partner Rashad Evans had sustained a knee injury in training, and would not be able to compete in his scheduled match with UFC light heavyweight champion Maurício "Shogun" Rua. Jones was told by Joe Rogan in the post-fight interview that he would replace Evans in the fight for the UFC Light Heavyweight Championship. On March 19, 2011, at UFC 128, Jones defeated Rua by TKO at 2:37 of Round 3, becoming the youngest ever UFC champion. After an early flying knee that badly hurt the champion, Shogun was dominated throughout the three rounds. A body shot and knee to the head dropped the champion to his knees, causing the referee to step in and halt the match.


title: Jon Jones

text: Jones's first title defense was expected to be on August 6, 2011, at UFC 133 against Rashad Evans, his former friend and teammate, but Jones was sidelined with a hand injury. It was initially announced that the hand injury would require surgery, but Jones opted for rest and rehabilitation without surgery after further consultations with doctors. Jones's injury was originally thought to keep him out of action until late 2011, but he instead made his first title defense against Quinton Jackson on September 24, 2011, at UFC 135. Jones defeated Jackson via rear naked choke submission at 1:14 in the 4th round. In the process, he became the first UFC fighter to submit Jackson. In 2012, Jones said that this was his favorite fight up to that point.


title: Jon Jones

text: Jones vs. Evans was in the works for a second time, and a bout was targeted for December 10, 2011, at UFC 140. However, a lingering thumb injury cost another title opportunity for Evans, and Jones instead faced Lyoto Machida at the same event.


title: Jon Jones

text: Despite getting rocked in the first round by Machida, Jones successfully defended the light heavyweight title at UFC 140, stopping Machida at 4:26 of the second round via guillotine choke technical submission, which caused Machida to collapse unconscious along the cage. This was the first submission loss in Machida's career.


title: Jon Jones

text: Jones finally faced his arch rival and former teammate Rashad Evans on April 21, 2012, at UFC 145, and won via unanimous decision (49–46, 49–46, and 50–45). During the UFC 145 post fight press conference, Dana White confirmed that Jones's next opponent would be Dan Henderson. The Jones-Henderson fight was expected to take place at UFC 151, but Henderson pulled out of the bout due to injuries, Jones then refused a late replacement fight with Chael Sonnen after his coach Greg Jackson told him with three training days left, it would be pretty difficult to prepare. UFC 151 was then subsequently cancelled. It was later reported that Henderson was injured three weeks prior to the announcement, but kept the injury under wraps as he was still hoping to compete. However, he had to withdraw following a final sparring session to evaluate his condition.


title: Jon Jones

text: Jones decision to decline the fight against Sonnen was criticized. In the 19-year history of the UFC, it was the first card to ever be canceled. UFC president Dana White went on record saying, "this is one of the most selfish, disgusting decisions that doesn't just affect you. This is affecting 16 other lives, their families, kids are going back to school. The list goes on and on of all the things, the money that was spent for fighters to train and the list goes on and on. Like I said, I don't think this is going to make Jon Jones popular with the fans, sponsors, cable distributors, television network executives or other fighters."


title: Jon Jones

text: A rematch with Lyoto Machida was then announced for September 22, 2012, at UFC 152. Lyoto Machida, who was not contacted prior to the announcement, rejected the fight due to the lack of time to train before the bout. Jones, instead, defended the championship against Vitor Belfort on September 22, 2012, at UFC 152. Jones opened as a massive favorite (13-to-1) coming into the bout. Despite almost being submitted via armbar in round one, Jones successfully defended the belt against Belfort via Americana submission in round four, and equaled Chuck Liddell's number of title defenses. Jones also won a $65,000 "Submission of the Night" bonus for his finish of Belfort.


title: Jon Jones

text: Jones was chosen to coach opposite Chael Sonnen on . With a bout between the coaches taking place on April 27, 2013, at UFC 159.


title: Jon Jones

text: Jones displayed a lack of interest in the bout and actively downplayed the contest, making it clear that he did not believe Sonnen was a fit contender. In an interview, Sonnen did his best to garner interest in the bout, but Jones gave him the "silent treatment", and refused to make eye contact. Jones made quick work of his challenger, finishing Sonnen via TKO in the first round. However, he broke the phalanx (big toe) on his left foot during the fight. With the win, Jones tied Tito Ortiz for having most consecutive title defenses in UFC light heavyweight history.


title: Jon Jones

text: Jones faced Alexander Gustafsson on September 21, 2013, at UFC 165. Jones was badly cut above the eye during the first round, but he won the back-and-forth fight via unanimous decision (48–47, 48–47, and 49–46). After the match, Jones said Gustafsson gave him the toughest fight of his career, and both were sent to the hospital for their injuries. Both men suffered lacerations and facial swelling, but were released from the hospital with no broken bones or serious injuries. The bout earned both fighters the "Fight of the Night" bonus award. The match received numerous positive reviews: "an epic battle", "instant-classic", "Fight of the Year", "Greatest light heavyweight title fight of all-time", "one of the greatest fights in UFC history". On March 8, 2020, it was announced that the fight will be inducted to UFC Hall of Fame's Fight Wing on July 9.


title: Jon Jones

text: Jones was expected to take on Glover Teixeira on February 1, 2014, at UFC 169. However, on October 7, UFC President Dana White stated that the announcement for this fight on that card was premature and that Jones and Teixeira would face each other on a different card. On November 13, 2013, it was announced that Jones would fight Teixeira at UFC 170, scheduled for February 22, 2014, however the next day it was announced that the match had been removed from the card. On December 4, 2013, it was announced that Jones and Teixeira would face each other at UFC 171 on March 15, 2014, in Dallas, Texas, however, the fight was moved again. Jones and Teixeira finally fought on April 26, 2014, at UFC 172.


title: Jon Jones

text: On April 27, 2014, UFC President Dana White confirmed that Jones would next have a rematch against Gustafsson, and stated the possibility of the match taking place in a stadium in Sweden on pay-per-view. On May 24, 2014, it was indicated that the rematch would take place in Las Vegas on August 30, 2014, at UFC 177. The statement, and the time and venue, was not official however, because Gustafsson was the only one who still had agreed to accept the match. On June 2, the fight was still on hold, and White explained the situation as "Jones doesn't want to fight Gustafsson", and instead expressed his preference for fighting Daniel Cormier.


title: Jon Jones

text: On June 5, 2014, the UFC confirmed that the Jones vs. Gustafsson rematch would take place on September 27, 2014, at UFC 178. However, Gustafsson had to pull out of the match due to a torn meniscus. Jones was then expected to take on replacement Daniel Cormier at UFC 178. On August 12, 2014, it was announced that Jones had sustained a leg injury in training, causing him to withdraw. The bout was rescheduled, and eventually took place on January 3, 2015, at UFC 182. Jones won the fight by unanimous decision (49–46, 49–46, and 49–46). He also became the first person to take Cormier down, scoring three takedowns in total. The win also earned Jones his fourth "Fight of the Night" bonus award. It was later revealed that Jones had failed a drug test one month prior to the event, as he tested positive for cocaine. (see below in "Controversies")


title: Jon Jones

text: Jones was expected to defend his title against Anthony Johnson on May 23, 2015, at UFC 187. However, on April 28, Jones was stripped of the belt and suspended from the UFC indefinitely in connection with a hit-and-run incident where he crashed into a pregnant woman then fled the scene on foot. Cormier, who lost against Jones at UFC 182 in January 2015, replaced him and went on to defeat Anthony Johnson to take the vacant UFC Light Heavyweight Championship.


title: Jon Jones

text: On October 23, 2015, the UFC announced that Jones had been reinstated to the active roster, nearly six months after his suspension was announced. A rematch with Cormier was expected to take place on April 23, 2016, at UFC 197. However, Cormier pulled out of the fight on April 1, citing a foot injury, and was replaced by Ovince Saint Preux. Jones defeated Saint Preux by unanimous decision (50–44, 50–45, and 50–45).


title: Jon Jones

text: The rematch with Cormier was rescheduled and expected to take place on July 9, 2016, at UFC 200. However, on July 6, 2016, Jones was removed from the bout by USADA on June 16 after a potential doping violation. On November 7, 2016, it was announced that Jones had been suspended for one year by USADA, retroactive to July 7. Two days later, it was announced that Jones had been stripped of his interim title, making him the first fighter in UFC history to be stripped of a title twice. On December 15, Jones was also suspended by the Nevada State Athletic Commission (NSAC) for one year.


title: Jon Jones

text: While on the sidelines, Jones fought retired MMA veteran Dan Henderson in a grappling match for the Submission Underground 2 tournament on December 14, 2016. After an even start, Jones eventually submitted Henderson with an arm-triangle choke six minutes into the bout. Following the fight, Jones expressed interest in competing against Chael Sonnen.


title: Jon Jones

text: The rematch with Daniel Cormier took place on July 29, 2017, at UFC 214 at the Honda Center in Anaheim, California. Jones won the fight and re-captured the UFC Light Heavyweight Championship via knockout in the third round. After the fight, Jones was awarded a "Performance of the Night" bonus. After the fight, Jones praised Cormier as a "model champion", while recognizing his own personal failings. He then challenged Brock Lesnar to a fight.


title: Jon Jones

text: On August 22, it was announced that Jones had been flagged for a potential doping violation by USADA, stemming from his sample that was collected after weigh-ins July 28. He tested positive for Turinabol, an anabolic steroid. Jones was placed on a provisional suspension as a result. On September 13, USADA confirmed that both the "A" and "B" sample of Jones' tested positive for Turinabol. As a result, the California State Athletic Commission (CSAC) officially overturned the result of the fight to a no contest. Subsequently, UFC President Dana White made the decision to strip him of the Light Heavyweight championship, and return it to Daniel Cormier.


title: Jon Jones

text: In September 2018, it was announced by USADA that Jones would serve a suspension of 15 months. From a potential suspension of 48 months USADA applied a reduction of 30 months for Jones's co-operation in identifying other anti-doping offences, and a further 3 months was applied by arbitrators McLaren in relation to Jones's degree of fault.


title: Jon Jones

text: On October 10, 2018, it was announced that Jones would return at UFC 232 on December 29, 2018, in a rematch with Alexander Gustafsson for the vacant UFC Light Heavyweight Championship. Jones defeated Gustafsson by technical knockout in the third round to win the UFC Light Heavyweight Championship.


title: Jon Jones

text: In the first defense of his second championship reign, Jones faced Anthony Smith on March 2, 2019, in the main event at UFC 235. Jones dominated the fight, but was deducted two points in the fourth round after landing an illegal knee to Smith's head. He won the fight via unanimous decision with all three judges submitting 48–44 scorecards for Jones.