Oculus Co-Founder Palmer Luckey Is Leaving Facebook

Controversial Oculus co-founder Palmer Luckey is leaving Facebook by the end of the week, the company acknowledged in a statement sent out to press Thursday.

“Palmer will be dearly missed,” the statement read. “We’re thankful for everything he did for Oculus and VR, and we wish him all the best.”

Luckey’s departure, which was first reported by UploadVR Thursday, doesn’t come unexpected. The Oculus co-founder had been absent from the public spotlight for months, even skipping the company’s last Oculus Connect developer conference, after a fall-out over his affiliation with a group of right-wing trolls.

Last September, news broke that Luckey had financed a group called Nimble America that had bought billboards with anti-Clinton slogans like “too big to jail” during the presidential election.

Luckey went on to apologize for his affiliation with the group, owning up to the fact that he had donated $10,000 for its billboards but denying some other charges. After that revelation, Luckey went radio silent on Twitter, Facebook and Reddit, where he previously was a vocal participant in discussions about virtual reality.

Luckey only recently resurfaced in the public eye when he had to take the stand in a lawsuit waged by game software developer Zenimax against Oculus and its co-founders. Zenimax had alleged that Oculus and others had stolen trade secrets to build the Oculus Rift VR headset. A jury agreed, and awarded the company $500 million in February. Facebook at the time vowed to appeal the judgement.

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