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Facebook has denied having sacked one of its former senior executives, Palmer Luckey, for his conservative views.
The Wall Street Journal reported Sunday that Luckey's departure came after the Daily Beast announced it had donated $ 10,000 to an anti-Hillary Clinton group, and after longtime support from Donald Trump at the 2016 presidential campaign.
According to the newspaper, citing leaked emails, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg reportedly pressured Luckey to switch from Trump to support libertarian candidate Gary Johnson. According to the newspaper, Luckey was put on leave after his donation, and returned in March 2017. He would have negotiated a payment of $ 100 million after hiring a lawyer specialized in labor law to argue that Facebook had broken California law .
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Luckey thinks he's been fired from Facebook because of his political views, the newspaper reported. Trump is largely unpopular in Silicon Valley, where most technology employees support Liberal candidates, according to the non-profit organization Open Secrets.
However, Andrew Bosworth, head of Facebook, who now oversees the Oculus division, issued a strong statement denying that Luckey was fired for his political leanings.
He wrote: "Any claim that his departure is due to his conservative beliefs is false."
When asked if he thought Luckey himself was perhaps at the origin of the newspaper's history, Bosworth wrote: "Honestly, I have no idea from whom are their sources, but simply that what has been shared is not the truth and that the information provided seem selected to bring the journalists to a specific and erroneous conclusion. "
Similarly, Facebook denied that Luckey was fired for supporting Trump. A spokeswoman told the newspaper: "We can state unequivocally that Palmer's departure was not due to his political views.We are grateful for Palmer's contributions to Oculus and we are pleased that he continues to actively support the virtual reality industry ".
And sources speaking in the Journal suggested that the fact that Luckey had hidden his gift to a group that was releasing memories of Hillary Clinton, and that he had withdrawn from Oculus were decisive factors in his departure .
Luckey did not immediately respond to Business Insider's comment request, but told the Wall Street Journal: "I believe that the team that remains in Oculus is still the best in the virtual reality industry and I wish that she succeed. "
The Journal's story comes as conservative figures in California, such as Peter Thiel, argue that high-tech companies are dominated by the Liberals at the management and employee levels and that different viewpoints are smothered. The dismissal of Google by James Damore, who wrote a controversial note on the company's diversity practices, was seen as a turning point. Brian Amerige, a former Facebook engineer, also left the firm and claimed an "intolerant" culture.
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