$1.25M is less for Thiel than $100 is for most people. The absolute amount is meaningless, you have to normalize by wealth here.
Hillary has multiple people over a million. These are private individuals too. http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2016-06-16/leaked-list-hillary...
It buys a certain amount of airtime, organizers' time, etc. Thiel said, "I'm not going to do X numbers of hours of work for you, but I'm going to donate them to your campaign."
That number of hours is staggeringly high, by the way: equivalent to 30+ years of full-time work by unskilled laborers.
Right, I think GP was replying to your earlier statement that:
> Not many people are willing to part with $1.25M for someone they don't fanatically support.
Rather than trying to minimize the 1.25M