This isn’t virtual reality. This is as real as clusterfuck launches and shipping delays. Oculus founder Palmer Luckey is the money man behind a multimillion-dollar online pro-Donald Trump (anti-Hillary Clinton) meme machine, according to a report by the Daily Beast.
The Daily Beast reports Luckey used the pseudonym "NimbleRichMan" on reddit to solicit more funds for "a pro-Trump political organization called Nimble America, a self-described ‘social welfare 501(c)4 non-profit’ in support of the Republican nominee.”
One of the Oculus’ early backers, IRL (a VR studio) founder Cody Brown tweeted he was ashamed to have supported the Oculus. “As an early supporter of Oculus this makes me sick to my stomach,” he wrote.
As an early supporter of @Oculus this makes me sick to my stomach. This is the org @PalmerLuckey is backing Cc @TechCrunch @UploadVR pic.twitter.com/athqtwol7e
— codyb (@codybrown) September 23, 2016
In an editorial post on There Is Only R, Brown said, "this one hurts... The response to this news from the VR community has been some mixture of shock, rage, and disbelief. How the fuck can the person who speaks volumes about the empathy potential of VR co-found a political organization with direct ties to white supremacy? And to do it in secret?”
Luckey has yet to post an update online following The Daily Beast’s story but that hasn’t stopped other VR designers, tech journalists and game creators from voicing their displeasure at Luckey’s Trump support.
Luckey’s involvement with pro-Trump propaganda quickly became the top point of discussion for Oculus users, early backers and those on r/Oculus. R/Oculus, the main source of Oculus discussions online, originally deleted all threads and discussions of the Daily Beast story. They, kind of, had a change of heart.
“Although it's the moderators opinion that politics have no place in /r/Oculus, we are reinstating this post,” the thread reads. “We hope the conflict can remain in this one thread. This is a reminder to please be civil. We will still be moderating this post for individual comments that do not follow our rules.”
With hundreds of comments on the topic, the most common (and upvoted) responses on the subreddit expressed a combination of surprise, outrage and (because this is reddit) snark.
“ There were definitely similarities between the Rift and Nimble America's launch…” - WarOfTheFanboys
"Palmer Luckey's support of Trump has lost my support of Oculus," - MrCyn
“At this point he needs to do a very in-depth AMA if he has any plans on rebuilding any sort of trust with the community. Which we all know wont happen.” - ExynosHD
“I've tried both and i like the Vive better anyway.” - Fanboy50000
“He's a liability to Facebook and brings nothing to the table but a nice story that's getting past its expiration date. He won't be front and center for Oculus. Simple as that -- too much money is at stake for some immature kid to run around making everybody's work more difficult.” - MafiaVsNinja
If Facebook likes and Twitter hearts are any indication, the latest news of Luckey’s Trump support shouldn’t be a surprise. Luckey has, prior to any news of his Trump-backing, would often like Trump status updates and tweets.
Luckey’s Trump support marks the second time this year Facebook has had one of its more well-known partners outed as Trump backers. Earlier this year Peter Thiel was revealed to be the man who financed Hulk Hogan’s lawsuit against Gawker. The lawsuits forced Gawker, and founder Nick Denton, to file for bankruptcy and eventually sell to Univision. Thiel also spoke on Trump’s behalf at the Republican National Convention in July.
