Oculus Rift creator Palmer Luckey is financing a pro-Trump meme group
24-year-old millionaire co-founder of Oculus VR, the Facebook-owned group that created the Oculus Rift virtual reality headset, is behind the main funder for an internet meme-focused anti-Clinton group.
Palmer Luckey is notorious for having sold his nascent VR company to Facebook for $2 billion. The company's first major product, the Oculus Rift, launched earlier this year.
Next, he may be most closely associated with the kinds of anti-Hillary Clinton Facebook memes that even strident Donald Trump supporters roll their eyes at - as The Daily Beast reports, Luckey is the financing behind "Nimble America," a Conservative group with a focus on viral, anti-Clinton memes.
More directly, Nimble America describes itself as such: "We've proven that s***posting is powerful and meme magic is real."
Luckey describes the kind of stuff that Nimble America does as, "Something that no campaign is going to run." One such example: an enlarged image of Clinton's face with the phrase "Too big to jail" alongside it.
In speaking with The Daily Beast, Luckey admitted his involvement, which includes running a Reddit account under the pseudonym, "NimbleRichMan." That same pseudonym shows up on the Nimble America website, which describes Luckey as vice president.
Business Insider has reached out to both Luckey and Facebook for comment.
The full description of his job goes on to say much more:
"NimbleRichMan is a near Billionaire and staunch supporter of the Common Sense Conservative movement. He is co-founder along with D.B. Purple and our third silent partner. Milo Yiannopoulos has personally vetted NimbleRichMan and the Non-Profit Nimble America, Inc. he helped create. NimbleRichMan will continue to guide Nimble America as its Vice-President."
Regardless of Luckey's political beliefs, you may be wondering why a 24-year-old entrepreneur with a wildly successful company would want to spend money on such a thing - to say nothing of the potential public relations fallout from revealing his part.
"I've got plenty of money. Money is not my issue," Luckey told The Daily Beast. "I thought it sounded like a real jolly good time." Don't miss the full piece at The Daily Beast - it's quite a story.