Dear community,
we are writing this short info in our own interest, and for the sake of our time, because we have noticed that misinformation about the ownership structure of Brave Software, the company behind the Brave Browser, is currently circulating online, here are some exhibits:
https://reddit.com/r/privacy/comments/1t32lfo/ive_been_stupid_to_assume_brave_were_one_of_the/
https://reddit.com/r/privacy/comments/1rvk9ly/has_brave_done_anything_sus_in_2026/
The claim is made that Brave Software is owned by either Palantir Technologies Inc. or Peter Thiel personally. To put it clearly:
This is not accurate.
What is accurate is that Brave Software Inc. did receive a minor angel investment of $4.5 Mio. in 2016, that is ten years ago, from Founders Fund, where Peter Thiel is one of the partners. It is to be noted here that Founders Fund is broadly invested in many products, they have also invested in the past in e.g. Spotify, Airbnb, or ResearchGate. Founders Fund investing in a company does not mean that the company has to serve the interests of Thiel, has to share data with Palantir, or has to be in other ways subservient to Peter Thiel's broader interests and other investments.
Saying that Peter Thiel personally and / or Palantir owns Brave Software, in part or in total, is factually inaccurate. What is accurate to say is that Founders Fund has invested in the company, which does neither imply Thiel ownership nor Palantir involvement.
Dear redditor who reads this, please realize that, if we let wrong information like "Peter Thiel owns Brave" or "Palantir owns Brave" stand here even though we could remove it, this is highly problematic. Not only would we let known untrue claims circulate here, our subreddit would also earn a reputation for misinformation if people choose to investigate deeper and find that strong claims like this are not in fact reflecting reality or the truth.
We also encourage you to think critically: The Brave Browser is open source software, it is developed transparently in the open, and provably(!) does not share valuable user data with the parent company. If(!) Peter Thiel or Palantir had any interest in acquiring user browser data, there are better avenues for this than an open source browser that is under heightened scrutiny, it is very likely that such data sharing would be widely publicized immediately.
We as the moderators are tired of dealing with campaigning based on verifiably false information, and would appreciate it if this stopped. Speaking about the Founders Fund investment will not be blocked or hindered by us, but false information about the actual ownership structure of any company, we cannot let stand.
We would like to avoid any rule protecting specific products from misinformation, and would also not like to resort to automatic bot removal action unless absolutely necessary. So please, do your own research, and try to put out accurate information in order to not ruin the subreddit as a source of information, which is required by rule 6 of this subreddit anyway.
Thank you for your attention.