Palmer Luckey, the founder of Oculus, has left the company. Luckey was responsible for the company’s rise to prominence and its VR headset which went on sale in early 2016. No comment was available from Facebook, which owns the company.
Luckey’s departure follows a period when the company lost a $500m court case against media firm Zenimax that accused Luckey of violating a non-disclosure agreement he signed with the firm in 2014. Facebook and Oculus have appealed against the damages award. No statement has yet appeared about the future plans of Luckey.
Luckey became a controversial figure in 2016, when it emerged that he had partly bankrolled a group helping Donald Trump’s presidential bid. Due to the adverse publicity, Luckey appeared far less often at Oculus events.
When Facebook bought the company in 2014 for $2bn, Luckey received a significant pay-out as the major shareholder of Oculus.
