UNHAPPY VALLEY

WSJ: Facebook Axed Palmer Luckey After Daily Beast Exposé

Facebook employees reportedly expressed anger at Luckey's actions and Mark Zuckerberg later denied that his departure had anything to do with his political beliefs.

Palmer Luckey, the virtual reality guru who left Facebook six months after a story from The Daily Beast revealed that he had donated to a trollish anti-Hillary Clinton outfit, was ousted because of his politics, according to a Sunday report in The Wall Street Journal. While Mark Zuckerberg had previously testified before Congress that Luckey's departure was unrelated to his personal politics, internal Facebook emails seen by the Journal suggested that Luckey's views were talked about at high levels of the company and that Luckey himself told people that he was put on leave and fired because of his support of Donald Trump, the paper reports. Facebook executives including Zuckerberg reportedly pressured Luckey to voice support for libertarian presidential candidate Gary Johnson in the weeks and months following The Daily Beast story, which he did. The Journal reports that Luckey and an employment lawyer negotiated a payout of at least $100 million arguing that he had been punished for personal political activity. When Luckey wrote a Facebook post describing his actions after The Daily Beast story, he said he was planning to vote for Johnson.