Oculus co-founder Palmer Luckey says he was fired by Facebook for his pro-Trump views

tech2 News StaffMay 23, 2019 10:37:20 IST

Oculus co-founder Palmer Luckey who allegedly left the company he sold to Facebook in 2014 says he believes the social media giant fired him due to his political views.

In an interview with CNBC at the Collision tech conference in Toronto, the entrepreneur addressed his departure from Facebook in March 2017.

At the time, no explanation was given by either party, with Luckey merely saying it “wasn’t his choice to leave” last year.

However, Luckey is now going on record to reveal why he was actually fired from the company. While he says Facebook had “no reason at all” to fire him, he speculates that it had to do with libertarian ideologies.

Oculus founder Palmer Luckey at an event in 2015. Reuters

“I gave $10,000 to a pro-Trump group, and I think that has something to do with it,” he told CNBC.

The Oculus founder was referring to a donation he made to an internet group named 'Nimble America' which campaigned in 2016 against Hillary Clinton in favour of Presidential candidate Donald Trump.

According to a report published by the Wall Street Journal late last year, Facebook's CEO Mark Zuckerberg pressured Luckey to publicly shift support to a libertarian candidate Gary Johnson and fired the Oculus co-founder when he didn’t comply.

Voicing his views on the idea of Facebook being broken up, Luckey said Facebook’s problems would not necessarily go away by breaking up the tech giant. He also said that the stepping down of CEO Mark Zuckerberg wouldn't really affect Facebook.

“These companies are so huge, it’s easy to pin it all on one person,” Luckey said. "When you’re on the inside, you realize that replacing one person isn’t going to change the way things work."