Palmy Lackey, the controversial Oculus VR headset developer who was fired by Facebook in 2017 for donating $10,000 to a pro-Donald Trump organization, told Meta that he was behind his departure. He called for “everything to be made public” regarding the still-ambiguous situation.
Facebook said Luckey, who sold Oculus to Meta for $2 billion in 2014 and now runs military contractor Anduril Technologies, posted critical memes about Hillary Clinton ahead of the 2016 presidential election. He has repeatedly denied that he was forced out of the company for funding his campaign. .
The bizarre story resurfaced over the weekend after Luckey sparred with Meta’s chief technology officer, Andrew Bosworth, about X. He claimed that he had no knowledge of Mr. Palmer’s politics, both now and in the past, but publicly defended him within the company when people were making noise.
Mr. Lackey quickly questioned Mr. Bosworth’s credibility, saying that the Meta executive said, “People who post claiming I donated to white supremacists or who support Trump because they don’t like Hillary Clinton are human beings.” I retweeted the post.”
“You publicly told everyone that my resignation had nothing to do with politics, which is completely outrageous and clearly contradicts all internal communications,” Lackey said. said. “That’s like saying the sky is green… Don’t try to be apolitical here.”
“I don’t claim to be apolitical, but I certainly have my own politics, and probably different politics than you, but at the time, internally, I didn’t think anyone’s “I certainly didn’t think political beliefs should influence employment, and I thought people who asked about it in Q&A were out of line,” Bosworth said.
The two former colleagues exchanged a few more words, and Lackey finally said, “I’m going to give it all up.”
“If what you’re saying about me and why I was fired is true, then let’s put it all out there and let people decide for themselves,” Lackey said. “You are the CTO of Meta, Inc., a trillion dollar company. This is completely within your authority and not anyone else’s decision. Just say the word.”
The Post has reached out to Mehta for comment on the controversy.
In 2018, the Wall Street Journal reported that Mr. Lackey told people that he was fired from Facebook because his support for Mr. Trump caused anger within the company.
The media reported that Meta boss Mark Zuckerberg and others pressured Luckey to publicly endorse then-presidential candidate Liberal Gary Johnson to quell criticism. We have obtained an internal email that purports to show this.
“We can unequivocally say that Mr. Palmer’s resignation is not due to his political views. We appreciate Mr. Palmer’s contributions to Oculus and look forward to his continued active support of the VR industry. “We’re pleased to announce that,” a Facebook representative said in 2018.
Lackey previously addressed the situation during an appearance on the Wall Street Journal’s Tech Live conference in 2022, declaring that he had “no love for Facebook” and that the company “fired me.” .
“The official reason was no reason at all. They just didn’t have a place for me anymore,” Lackey said.
“The real reason is that they donated money to a certain president.” [candidate] …It’s a particular political initiative that was unpopular in 2016,” he added.
