The absolute amount is not meaningless because it has an effect in the real world.

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.