Oculus Rift co-Founder Funds Pro-Trump Campaign
Palmer Luckey, 24, known as the creator of the Oculus Rift VR headset, donated $10,000 to Nimble America. This a nonprofit organization that supports Donald Trump for the presidency of the U.S. He admitted this in a Facebook post after the scandal damaged the image of the Oculus Rift itself. In an effort to clean his image, Luckey said he would vote for the libertarian candidate, Gary Johnson. He also denied having written the post on Reddit with the ‘Nimble Rich’ pseudonym.
Palmer Luckey, Nimble America, and Virtual Reality
Making a political donation isn’t bad at all whether you support a candidate or another, but Nimble America is not a typical campaign group that supports Trump. Its main goal, as it claimed on Reddit, is to be a “nonprofit dedicated to shitposting in real life.” For those that do not understand what ‘shitposting’ means, it refers to posting offensive, misleading, or defamatory content. So, they are not exactly supporting a candidate, they are smearing others.
This represents trouble both for Luckey and the Oculus Rift. Some videogame developers have already suspended or cancelled their work for the Oculus. These include Polytron, Scruta Games, and Tomorrow Today Labs, as reported by ArsTechnica. And let’s not forget who owns Oculus Rift in the first place, social media giant Facebook; which made Palmer Luckey the rich man he is now after purchasing the Oculus Rift for $2 billion.
If Oculus Rift does not want to get involved with this mess, then even less would Facebook. Mark Zuckerberg’s company spends thousands of dollars fighting against harassment, defamation, discrimination and all kinds of social media misuse. So the company’s ideals are very far from Nimble America’s intentions and whoever is funding it. Palmer Luckey may be screwing the ones who most heavily invested in himself and his technology.
Politics and Business Don’t Always Get Along Very Well
Supporting a political candidate not popular in Silicon Valley is not what might hurt him or the company. It’s the fact that he funded an organization that damages the overall political discourse and disrespects the opponent instead of arguing with valid ideological arguments. He claims to be a libertarian and not supporting Trump, but true libertarians believe in the importance of individual liberties. If Palmer Luckey claims to be one and he really supports Gary Johnson, then he should have funded his campaign and respected others’ individual rights instead of funding a defamatory organization.
Meant for Each Other
To put a cherry on the pie, it seems Palmer Luckey has a long term relationship with Nicole Edelmann, also known as Nikki Moxxi. She is a cosplayer and member of the GamerGate movement. She publicly supports Donald Trump and her ideology seems to be very well aligned with the Republican candidate.
