Meta CTO and Reality Labs chief Andrew 'Boz' Bosworth has publicly apologized to Oculus founder Palmer Luckey, who was ousted from the company for political reasons in 2017.
To date Meta (formerly Facebook) has never been publicly acknowledged From where Luckey was fired; CEO Mark Zuckerberg even went on record saying at a US congressional hearing in 2018 that Luckey's dismissal “was not due to political views.”
But this was a political situation action Luckey's apparent notoriety among company leaders led to his ouster in March 2017, just three years after Meta acquired Oculus for $2 billion.
“I was fired for no reason,” Luckey said in a 2018 speech: “I gave $10,000 to a pro-Trump group and I think that had something to do with it. Wall Street Magazine The interview mentions his donation to an anti-Hillary Clinton ad campaign called 'Nimble America' in 2016.
This has understandably left some bad blood between Luckey and Meta over the years, with Luckey exiting the consumer XR space entirely by starting his own defense technology company, Anduril Industries.
Carmack's Regret, Boz and Luckey Showdown
Former Oculus CTO John Carmack, who left the company in 2022, reignited the smoldering fire in his post on X this April and said he regretted it. “Not doing more to support and defend Palmer Lucky On Facebook.” According to Carmack, things might have turned out differently if the former founders of Oculus had come together.
“Unfortunately, FB encouraged 'bringing your whole self to work,' which meant politics were clearly present and rabble-rousing was a thing,” Carmack said in a follow-up post. “I predict the employee referendum would go against Palmer, but it might be different if he had a united front of Oculus founders behind him.”
Additionally, Carmack said he believed Luckey's firing was due to “hysterical internal employee pressure.”[didn’t] “I think Mark Zuckerberg has a strong personal view on this.”
As a programming star and one of the clearest windows into the Meta's inner workings during her time there, when Carmack speaks, she tends to carry a lot of weight, causing the present Bosworth to struggle to speak.
Responding to Carmack, Bosworth said:“About the speculation of an employee referendum on Luckey's dismissal, he said, 'It's woefully inaccurate,' he said, adding, 'I'm in no position to correct it.' [,] Except maybe to say don't speculate!
This did not sit well with the victims when Boz later claimed that he had actually defended Luckey before his dismissal. Here's Luckey's response:
“Great story to tell now that I've brought myself back to relevance, but you're not believable. You retweeted posts claiming I donated to white supremacists and a post saying anyone who supports Trump because they don't like Hillary Clinton is a shitty person. You've publicly said my departure had nothing to do with politics, which is absolutely crazy and clearly contradicts a ton of internal communications. This is like saying the sky is green. The same goes for you telling people that I'm not under pressure to say the wrong thing, that it's up to me to talk about politics and who to vote for. Can I post my original statement, which was expressly rejected because I said negative things about Hillary Clinton, or is this still considered Work Product? “Maybe you're lying, maybe you're just ignorant and ready to whitewash other people's lies about something you weren't around for, but don't try to play the apolitical hero here.”
If you want to see two multimillionaires not running for political office Discuss with each other, do not miss the rest of the topic.
Gray Broker Peace
Nearly five months into the online dispute, Luckey has been invited aboard the Meta mothership for the first time since his departure in 2017; Here he not only tried out the company's Orion AR glasses prototype, but also got a facial. In the Meta CTO's last post on X, he apologized to Bosworth in person.
I'm glad you came to check out Orion. I've mentioned this myself, but I also wanted to publicly apologize for my previous comments about your time at Oculus. I'm sorry,” Bosworth said. “After reading the latest developments Tablet I dug into some of the events that took place before my time when a different group of people who were no longer with the company were running the group. Turns out I was given false information, but that's no excuse and I shouldn't have said anything since I wasn't involved. I'm grateful for the impact you've made on the company and the development of VR in general. I look forward to showing you more of our work in the future.”
“Thank you, Boz. Apology accepted,” Luckey replied. “I'm very good at holding grudges, but Meta has changed a lot in the last 8 years. Those responsible for my expulsion and internal/external smear campaign are not even around anymore. At some point the Ship of Theseus sailed.”
Luckey also stated that “it was pretty surreal to be back on campus with you all, Orion alone was worth the trip.” This is more or less exactly what I wanted to achieve.”
Tablet The whistleblower Boz cited even had kind words directly from Zuckerberg; These aren't coming from the usual “PR sycophants,” Luckey emphasized in an X post:
“I have great respect for Palmer, both for what he has done for VR and for achieving the rare feat of building so many successful companies.” In a statement to Tablet this month, Zuckerberg made his first statement about Luckey in several years. “He is an impressive freethinker and fun to work with. I was sad when his time at Meta ended, but the good thing is that his work at Anduril will be extremely important to our national security. I'm glad an entrepreneur of his caliber is working on these problems. I hope we can find ways to work together in the future.”