The private jet used by Peter Thiel and his family had two bathrooms, but somehow on July 13, 2024, neither of them was easily accessible. One of the passengers at the back of the plane was stuffed with luggage. The second one, according to one of the court applications, was used to store insulated bags with food and kitchen equipment. What happened next became the subject of a federal lawsuit involving allegations of an alleged assault, as well as disputes over workers’ compensation and whether a non-disclosure agreement could stop a former flight attendant from suing the husband of one of the world’s richest people.
Stefanie Bojar, the flight attendant at issue in the dispute, was employed by Solairus Aviation – which did not immediately respond to a request for comment – but worked on more than 200 flights for Thiel and his husband, Matthew Danzeisen. Bojar claims that during the July flight, Danzeisen – who is also director of private investments at Thiel Capital – pushed her aside and threw multiple bulky cooler bags at her, causing her to hit the wall of the plane and leaving her to fall to the cabin floor. She claims Danzeisen’s actions caused grave injuries to her ankle and knee.
Danzeisen says he was clearing the bags from the bathroom so one of his children could exploit them. At most, he says, one of the bags could have accidentally brushed against Bojar’s leg.
(Like other claims in this story attributed to Bojar and Danzeisen, these were made in a lawsuit.)
In May, Danzeisen preemptively sued Bojar in the Central District of Southern California after she claims she sent a “demand letter” months earlier. Although one of Bojar’s lawyers, Elliott Jung, tells WIRED that the letter was an attempt to resolve the dispute out of court, Danzeisen’s complaint describes Bojar as waging a “campaign to extort” him and his husband. Characterizing Bojar as a former flight attendant with a checkered airline career, the complaint accuses her of launching a “defamation campaign” and violating a non-disclosure agreement, and asks the court to essentially impose a bar of silence and award actual and punitive damages.
Bojar denied the allegations in a counterclaim filed Tuesday, adding Thiel Capital as a defendant and alleging battery, assault, emotional distress and negligent supervision. Rejecting the characterization of her career as “characteristic,” she maintains that Thiel Capital staff helped coordinate the private aviation account she worked on, knew or should have known of Danzeisen’s alleged behavior toward the flight crew, and failed to intervene before or after the July 2024 incident.
In an interview, Bojar’s lawyer called Danzeisen’s pre-emptive lawsuit a “bullying tactic” intended to intimidate a former flight attendant who was injured on the plane.
“Just because you have wealth,” Jung said, “doesn’t mean you have the right to just hurt people.”
“This is a trial involving a bag that hit someone’s leg, and we are not paying for these trials,” Alex Spiro, a lawyer for Danzeisen, said in a statement. “So we’ll see everyone in court.”
According to both documents, the flight was scheduled to depart Sun Valley, Idaho, to Washington, D.C. on July 13, 2024, coincidentally the same day that Donald Trump survived an attack at a campaign rally in Butler, Pennsylvania. But the plane had a grave storage problem.
Bojar claims Thiel’s personal assistant told the crew that the family’s luggage would be delivered in two deliveries, disrupting the usual process of loading bags before passengers boarded. Without ground assistance, Boyar, the pilot and the first officer had to load and organize the bags themselves.
Bojar says the cabin was tight before Thiel’s family boarded. According to her findings, excess luggage was blocking the rear bathroom, while the front bathroom was being used as overflow storage for cooler bags and the private chef’s kitchen equipment.