Bathroom Dispute On Peter Thiel’s Private Jet Spills Into High-Stakes Federal Assault Lawsuit

On the private jet carrying billionaire investor Peter Thiel and his family, there were two full bathrooms. Yet somehow, on July 13, 2024, neither was accessible when needed. The rear restroom was completely crammed with checked luggage, and court records show the front was being used to store insulated food coolers and kitchen gear. What unfolded after that logjam has sparked a bitter federal lawsuit that includes allegations of physical assault, disputes over workers’ compensation, and a battle over whether a confidentiality agreement can block a former flight attendant from suing the husband of one of the world’s wealthiest people.

Stefanie Bojar, the flight attendant at the center of the conflict, was employed by Solairus Aviation — which did not immediately respond to requests for comment — and had completed more than 200 flights serving Thiel and his husband Matthew Danzeisen, who leads private investments at Thiel Capital.

Per Bojar’s account of that July flight, Danzeisen shoved her out of the way and hurled multiple heavy cooler bags directly at her, slamming her into the jet’s interior wall and leaving her crumpled on the cabin floor. She claims his actions left her with severe, lasting injuries to her ankle and knee. Danzeisen counters that he was only clearing bags from the restroom so one of his young children could use it, and that at worst, a single bag accidentally brushed Bojar’s leg. All conflicting claims from both sides are laid out in official court filings.

In May, Danzeisen filed a preemptive lawsuit against Bojar in the Southern Division of the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California. He says the suit followed a formal demand letter for compensation Bojar sent months earlier. While Bojar’s attorney Elliott Jung told WIRED the letter was an effort to resolve the dispute out of court, Danzeisen’s legal filing frames Bojar as running an “extortion campaign” targeting him and Thiel.

Danzeisen’s complaint paints Bojar as a former flight attendant with a troubled professional history in aviation, accuses her of defamation and violating her confidentiality agreement, and asks the court to issue what amounts to a gag order, plus grant him both actual and punitive damages.

Bojar denied all these allegations in a counterclaim filed earlier this week, adding Thiel Capital as a co-defendant and bringing her own claims of battery, assault, emotional distress, and negligent supervision. Rejecting the description of her career as checkered, Bojar argues that Thiel Capital staff helped manage the private aviation account she worked on, that they knew or should have known about Danzeisen’s reported aggressive behavior toward flight crews, and that they failed to intervene before or after the July 2024 incident.

In an interview, Bojar’s attorney called Danzeisen’s preemptive lawsuit a “bullying tactic” designed to intimidate a former flight attendant injured on the job. “Just because you have wealth doesn’t mean you have the right to just hurt people,” Jung said.

Alex Spiro, an attorney for Danzeisen, pushed back in a statement, framing the claim as an attempted shakedown. “This is a shakedown about a bag that bumped into someone’s leg, and we do not pay out to shakedowns,” Spiro said. “So we will see everyone in court.”

Court filings from both sides confirm the flight was scheduled to travel from Sun Valley, Idaho, to Washington, D.C., on July 13, 2024 — coincidentally the same day former president Donald Trump survived an assassination attempt at a campaign rally in Butler, Pennsylvania. The flight was plagued from the start by major storage issues, per Bojar’s account: one of Thiel’s personal assistants told the crew the family’s luggage would arrive in two separate shipments, disrupting the standard pre-boarding loading process. With no ground crew available to help, Bojar, the captain, and first officer had to load and sort all bags themselves. By the time Thiel’s family boarded, the cabin was packed tight with excess cargo.

When Danzeisen asked for access to a restroom for one of his children, the first officer told him it would take roughly five minutes to clear the blocked rear bathroom, Bojar says. Danzeisen’s own lawsuit makes no mention of this exchange. According to Bojar, Danzeisen refused to wait, grew angry, and demanded immediate access to the front bathroom. When Bojar tried to move the coolers out of the way, he shoved her aside and threw multiple heavy coolers at her, striking her left ankle, foot, and leg and knocking her into the plane’s wall.

Per the counterclaim, after the altercation Danzeisen threw a grocery bag full of food and drinks that spilled its contents across the cabin, then locked himself and his child inside the front bathroom “as though nothing had happened.” Bojar alleges the captain was “visibly shocked,” voiced his disbelief out loud, and had to pull the heavy coolers off of Bojar after she collapsed. She also notes that Peter Thiel saw her lying on the cabin floor immediately after the incident.

A follow-up MRI revealed a torn tendon in Bojar’s left ankle that required surgery and ongoing medical treatment, she says. The physical injury, paired with emotional trauma from the incident, left her unable to work as a flight attendant for a period of time, she adds.

Danzeisen’s version of events is far less dramatic. He says he was simply moving soft-sided fabric coolers full of food out of the front bathroom so his child could use it, and that the first officer and the family’s nanny were nearby watching him kneel and clear space. He claims Bojar entirely fabricated her story of a “grave injury,” arguing the interaction was so minor no one even realized a bag might have brushed against her at all. He also alleges Bojar told another staff member she hoped Thiel would see her limping — a claim Bojar explicitly denies.

Danzeisen’s legal team also argues that Bojar already treated the incident as a workplace injury by collecting workers’ compensation benefits, so that should be her only path to compensation. In short, he argues she cannot collect workers’ comp then sue him and Thiel Capital separately over the same incident.

Michael Duff, a professor of torts and workers’ compensation who directs the Wefel Center for Employment Law at Saint Louis University School of Law, reviewed the filings and noted the case hinges on whether Danzeisen or Thiel Capital qualify as Bojar’s employer. Workers’ compensation generally blocks personal injury lawsuits against an employer, Duff explained, but not necessarily against third parties. He added that the facts of the case are unusually bizarre even by legal academic standards. “My students would think I’d gone too far if I offered up these facts even for an exam,” he said.

Bojar argues the July 2024 incident was not isolated, but part of a broader pattern of abusive behavior from Danzeisen on the family’s flights. She alleges just weeks earlier, on June 27, 2024, Danzeisen berated her during another dispute over the front bathroom being used for storage, despite her efforts to coordinate with staff and the private chef to prevent the issue.

Her counterclaim details a consistently tense work environment around Danzeisen: other staff warned her Danzeisen was “jealous” and told her not to speak to Peter Thiel or interact with the couple’s children — a rule that was nearly impossible to follow while working as a flight attendant on the account. She says staff even sent her text warnings when Danzeisen was in an “awful mood” or told her to “beware of moods.” Bojar further claims at least two other flight attendants stopped working on the Thiel account after similar abuse, including one attendant who was nearly struck with a fork by Danzeisen.