Oculus co-founder claims to have been ousted for his favorable views of Trump

Image: Horacio Villalobos – Corbis / Corbis via Getty Images

Oculus co-founder, Palmer Luckey, told CNBC in early October that he could not talk about his departure from Facebook, but had said "that it was not my choice to leave".

When he left the company in March 2017, he was presumed to be due to Luckey's donation to a pro-Trump organization called Nimble America, a group of traffickers who had aired memoirs about Hillary Clinton, as reported by the Daily Beast. .

Now a the Wall Street newspaper According to the report, Luckey would have been put on leave, then fired, and he would have told people that it was thanks to his support of Donald Trump.

As a result of the revelations about Luckey's donation, employees would have been dissatisfied with his support for Nimble America, which was founded by two moderators of subreddit / r / The_Donald, infamous for his occasional misogyny and hate speech.

Citing internal emails to Facebook, WSJ reports that Luckey received $ 100 million after he left and that he had been pressured by Facebook leaders, including CEO Mark Zuckerberg, to publicly voice his support for Libertarian candidate Gary Johnson following the donation.

However, sources who spoke to the editor said that the fact that Luckey was fired for political reasons was an "overly simplistic" statement and that his lack of honesty over the debacle of donations and the diminished role of Oculus were more important factors.

Facebook has long denied that Luckey's departure is tied to his policy. Zuckerberg reiterated it during his testimony before Congress in April. A Facebook spokesman told WSJ by email: "We can say unequivocally that Palmer's departure is 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 ".

Andrew "Boz" Bosworth, VP of VR / AR of Facebook, echoed this statement, tweeting that Luckey's departure had "nothing to do" with his policy.

NBC journalist Ben Collins also criticized the WSJ report. With Gideon Resnick's reporter, he originally covered Luckey's gift to Nimble America for the Daily Beast. In a tweet, Collins said the idea of ​​Luckey's dismissal because of his conservative policy "seems a bit ridiculous".

Collins added that before accepting the donation, Luckey had lied to Facebook about his support for the troll group, which he had done under a secret pseudonym called "NimbleRichMan". Luckey had confirmed this Resnick by e-mail.

Facebook has been contacted for a comment.