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Oculus Co-Founder Palmer Luckey Leaving Facebook
Palmer Luckey (left) with Oculus co-founder, Brendan Iribe
Palmer Luckey, Oculus co-founder and credited inventor of the Rift virtual reality headset, is leaving Facebook.
According to a report from UploadVR.com, Luckey's last day with Facebook, which purchased Oculus in 2014, is tomorrow. Facebook has offered no details regarding whether Luckey's departure is voluntary or otherwise.
Luckey has been involved in assorted controversies in recent months. In September it was revealed he was the financial supporter of an unofficial Donald Trump support group responsible for creating memes attacking Hillary Clinton. You can read more about that here. He was also connected to a lawsuit between ZeniMax and Oculus which ended awarding $500 million to ZeniMax. You can read more about that here.
We've reached out to Oculus and Facebook for more details on Luckey's departure, and will update this story if and when we receive new details.
Update: Facebook was able to offer the following statement regarding Luckey's departure:
Palmer will be dearly missed. Palmer's legacy extends far beyond Oculus. His inventive spirit helped kickstart the modern VR revolution and build an industry. We're thankful for everything he did for Oculus and VR, and we wish him all the best.
[Source: Upload VR]
Our Take
It's entirely possible that Luckey was ready to move on to new things, or maybe even retire, after his success with Oculus and Facebook. But it's also possible that he may have been hurting the platform's public relations considering his political affiliations. In any case, I'm curious where we will hear from him next. Will he continue to work on Virtual Reality? Or will he be moving on to something new?
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