September 22–24, 2016
SOMEWHERE.
Somewhere out in the Pacific Ocean, coordinates unknown. There, from the balcony of his room on a Riviera cruise ship, Luckey looked out at the horizon: bright, blue, and brilliantly tranquil. It was perfect. Or it should have been. But right now, it didn’t matter. Because nothing mattered. Except for one thing: he was about to become the most hated man in Silicon Valley.
As Luckey considered the implications, his phone buzzed with a text message:
UNKNOWN NUMBER: What the fuck.
For a moment, Luckey was able to appreciate the irony of this situation—that right now, on the precipice of all hell breaking loose, only a handful of people knew what was about to go down. And one of those people—the one texting Luckey—was a guy he barely knew, and who, despite a (much deserved) reputation for courting controversy, had, in this instance, just been trying to help a fellow Trump supporter. That guy was Milo Yiannopoulos.
MILO YIANNOPOULOS: You saw my emails, I couldn’t have been clearer.
MILO YIANNOPOULOS: I said “Confirmed?” and he said “Sure thing.”
MILO YIANNOPOULOS: I’ve never seen the Beast behave so dishonorably
The “Beast” was The Daily Beast and “Sure thing” was a reference to an assurance that Daily Beast reporter Gideon Resnick had given Yiannopoulos two days earlier after a brief correspondence between the two that began with this:
FROM: Gideon Resnick
TO: Milo Yiannopoulos
DATE: September 20, 2016
SUBJECT: Quick Question
Hey,
Hope you’re doing well. I wanted to know if you had any knowledge of the Nimble America charity. Let me know when you get a free second. Thanks
>>>FROM: Milo Yiannopoulos
SUBJECT: Re: Quick Question
On background
All I did was verify the identity of the billionaire. I can ask him to talk to you. Nothing to do with me.
I can tell you off the record who it is if you want . . .
Even “off the record,” Yiannopoulos had no intention of sharing the billionaire’s identity, at least not without Luckey’s permission. At this stage, he was trying to get a sense of what Resnick was really after here. Was this going to be a piece about Nimble America; or was Nimble America merely a jumping-off point to pen a “hit piece” about Yiannopoulos?
For most people, this might seem like a paranoid thing to wonder, but for Yiannopoulos it was a valid concern—the natural by-product of an over-the-top, happy-to-piss-people-off personality that was perhaps best summed up by a quote Yiannopoulos had given to the LA Times in late 2015: “I enjoy upsetting the right people. I love poking fun at earnest censors. I want to push the bounds of what can be said on the Internet.”1
Given that MO, it was no surprise that journalists often wrote pieces about Yiannopoulos’s behavior. In fact, that was largely the goal from Yiannopoulos’s perspective. So he didn’t mind it when reporters took him to task . . . as long as what they were reporting was actually accurate information. Which he believed was not the case with a piece that Resnick had written about him one month prior: “Breitbart Editor Milo Yiannopoulos Takes $100,000 for Charity, Gives $0.”2 Yiannopoulos believed this to be an outright lie. “Charities take a long time to set up,” he would counter. “And all donations remained untouched.” Regardless, that experience had led him to believe that Resnick was less interested in reporting the truth than in collecting “scalps” from political enemies (i.e., anyone who supported Donald Trump); and it led Yiannopoulos to believe that Resnick was looking to write a similar piece here, something alleging that Nimble America was a scam—that they didn’t actually have a wealthy backer—and probably also alleging that any money Nimble America raised would just be going to line Yiannopoulos’s pockets. So anticipating this, Yiannopoulos replied: “What is the thrust of your story? Are you coming for me again?”
>>>FROM: Gideon Resnick
SUBJECT: Re: Quick Question
It might not be a story, just trying to verify that detail because whoever it is didn’t file paperwork for it yet.
>>>FROM: Milo Yiannopoulos
SUBJECT: Re: Quick Question
That’s nothing to do with me. All I did was verify the identity of a billionaire I know personally.
>>>FROM: Gideon Resnick
SUBJECT: Re: Quick Question
Got it. Could you provide the name just so I can independently verify? Won’t say it came from you.
At this point, Yiannopoulos reached out to Nimble America’s benefactor (Palmer Luckey), forwarded along this correspondence, and asked for a favor: Could I put you in touch with this reporter to get him off my ass?
Luckey, who very much meant what he had said on Reddit (“We [Trump supporters] dare not say a word. It would destroy us”), didn’t love the idea of being “outed” for his political beliefs. Yiannopoulos sympathized. “A conservative in super liberal Silicon Valley? They’d destroy you.” So seeking a solution that would satisfy all parties, Yiannopoulos asked Luckey if he would be open to speaking with Resnick provided that Resnick agreed not to reveal his identity.
“Sure,” Luckey said, open to being anonymously mentioned in a potential article about Nimble America. So Yiannopoulos contacted Resnick and offered an introduction to Nimble America’s wealthy backer under one condition:
FROM: Milo Yiannopoulos
TO: Gideon Resnick
SUBJECT: Re: Quick Question
You can’t print it without permission from him directly. Confirmed?
>>>FROM: Gideon Resnick
SUBJECT: Re: Quick Question
Sure thing. We are going to attempt to verify with him directly.
And with that, an agreement had seemingly been struck. But before actually going through with this, Luckey wanted to make sure that Yiannopoulos felt that Resnick could be trusted.
After a moment of consideration, Yiannopoulos said he did feel that way. Even though he took issue with that piece from just one month earlier, he noted that Resnick had acted ethically with regard to sourcing quotes, background comments, and other attributions. Besides, Yiannopoulos ended by telling Luckey, “Protecting your sources is rule number one of journalism. I know a lot of these places play dirty, but I truly can’t imagine that Gideon [Resnick] would go back on his word. That would be such a flagrant, blatant, violation of journalistic ethics. Nobody would commit such a cardinal sin of journalistic virtue.”
Luckey agreed with this logic and gave Yiannopoulos permission to make an introduction. And minutes later, Luckey received an email from the Daily Beast reporter:
FROM: Gideon Resnick
TO: Palmer Luckey
BCC: Milo Yiannopoulos
SUBJECT: Re: Gideon—meet Palmer
Thank you, Milo, for connecting us. Moving you to BCC to continue the conversation with Palmer.
Palmer, nice to meet you! I just wanted to get some info on Nimble America. How much do you know about it? Are you involved with it? And what’s the plan for it? Let me know when you get a chance. Thanks so much!
>>>FROM: Palmer Luckey
TO: Gideon Resnick
SUBJECT: Re: Gideon—meet Palmer
Hi Gideon,
Let’s chat on the phone in 20 minutes?
About twenty minutes later, Luckey and Resnick spoke briefly by phone. Luckey confirmed that Yiannopoulos had no connection to Nimble America (other than to vouch that there was indeed a wealthy backer), answered a few questions (about why Nimble America had appealed to him), and explained how he had first gotten in touch with the founders of this organization (Dustin Ward and Michael Malinowski, whom Luckey would later introduce to Resnick).
Shortly after the call, Resnick followed up with a quick question:
FROM: Gideon Resnick
TO: Palmer Luckey
Thanks again for taking the time to talk. So as a quick follow-up, are you “nimblerichman” on Reddit and did you post on Saturday night about donations? According to the PAC’s website, “nimble rich man” is wealthy benefactor so just checking if this is you.
Technically, Luckey hadn’t actually written the post in question. But since the account had been created to represent him, he believed that it would have been “intellectually dishonest” not to take responsibility for anything posted under the “NimbleRichMan” name.
FROM: Palmer Luckey
TO: Gideon Resnick
The Nimble America team made the account, but yes, it represents me. As far as I know, there are no other wealthy donors to Nimble America.
>>>FROM: Gideon Resnick
TO: Palmer Luckey
So they posed as you on Reddit to solicit donations? And did you know that was going to happen?
>>>FROM: Palmer Luckey
TO: Gideon Resnick
I made the post, just not the account.
>>>FROM: Gideon Resnick
TO: Palmer Luckey
So you made this post asking for contributions? [link to Reddit]
Come on, Luckey thought. Obviously, I didn’t personally write that! I would never say stuff like “Not the good kind [of freedom-strippers] you see dancing in bikinis on Independence Day” or “Donate a hundred and I will match you by skipping a glass of scotch.” I mean, I don’t even drink! But like I said, the account represents me, and have to take responsibility for what was posted.
FROM: Palmer Luckey
TO: Gideon Resnick
Yes, with guidance from the Nimble America guys. Like I mentioned, they would have been better off establishing a track record before pushing for this.
>>>FROM: Gideon Resnick
TO: Palmer Luckey
Got it. So you sent the body of that post to someone else to post on your behalf? And do you have a good contact for the person in charge of Nimble America? Sorry, not trying to be annoying.
>>>FROM: Palmer Luckey
TO: Gideon Resnick
I posted the body myself. Want me to email an intro to them?
Notably, at no point during this email exchange (nor during their brief phone conversation) had Luckey ever changed his mind and granted Resnick permission to print his name. Neither had the founders of Nimble America. All of which made it stunning to Luckey when Ben Collins, an editor at The Daily Beast, emailed Facebook a couple days later to say, “We’re doing a story on Palmer Luckey, who told us today he helped found and donate a large sum of cash to a political organization called ‘Nimble America’ . . . The group was cofounded with two moderators of Reddit’s r/The_Donald, which is often home to white supremacists [sic] memes.”
MILO YIANNOPOULOS: If he pushes ahead . . . they are begging to be sued
MILO YIANNOPOULOS: It’s staggering
MILO YIANNOPOULOS: Is this my fault? I panicked and asked you to do this. I know he lied and fucked you over but I feel some responsibility. I don’t know what to do.
Shortly after the Daily Beast editor had contacted Facebook PR, Luckey emailed Resnick to reiterate “you do not have permission to use my identity in your piece.”
“Palmer,” Resnick replied, “we had an entire conversation where you discussed this with me and at no time said that we couldn’t use your name . . . I would point you to journalistic ethics guides which dictate that: ‘These deals must be agreed to beforehand, never after. A source can’t say something then claim it was “off the record.” That’s too late.’”
Resnick ended his email with a link to the NYU Journalism Handbook for Students. Three hours later, Resnick’s article about Luckey and Nimble America—co-authored with editor Ben Collins—was published on The Daily Beast with the following juicy-but-false headline:
The Facebook Billionaire Secretly Funding Trump’s Meme Machine
Palmer Luckey—founder of Oculus—is funding a Trump group that circulates dirty memes about Hillary Clinton.3
BACK AT FACEBOOK—AS THE STORY BEGAN TO SPREAD AROUND CAMPUS—Oculus’ head of communications spoke briefly with Luckey and then sent an update to a handful of execs:
FROM: Tera Randall
SUBJECT: Palmer Trump Story
The story from Palmer’s conversations with the reporter about his donations to Trump just hit. Palmer is in the process of writing an internal post to share on Oculus FYI, explaining the background. I think it’s important that Palmer get in front of this. Goal is to post in the next 30 minutes, and he’s going to run the post by us.
I’m not commenting on this to press.
“Oculus FYI” was an internal Oculus page where company-wide messages were blasted out to employees. Typically, this meant things like holiday notices or product announcements, but—as per Randall’s email—this would be the ideal forum for Luckey to dispute key details in the Daily Beast article and explain, in his own words, exactly what the hell was going on.
“You need to write something that’s really authentic,” Iribe advised Luckey. “Something that explains your reasoning and really feels like it’s you.”
Luckey agreed with Iribe wholeheartedly. In fact, after 16 months of being around people who just assumed that (like them) he was supporting Hillary Clinton, it would be kind of nice to lay out why that wasn’t the case. With this in mind, Luckey drafted a statement that explained why he didn’t plan on voting for Clinton—citing his beliefs in “protecting American markets” and “not getting into endless wars”—and why he was supporting Donald Trump.
“WERE YOU SURPRISED BY HOW THE STORY WAS REPORTED?” A FRIEND WOULD ask Luckey six months later. “Not just The Daily Beast piece, but also the hundreds of other articles that followed.”
“Only a cynic could have anticipated what happened next,” Luckey answered.
“What do you mean?”
“Only the ultimate cynic could have predicated how poorly the story would be reported. Even having my problems with the media that I had, I still had more faith in the media.”
For about fifteen minutes after The Daily Beast story went live, Luckey clung to what still remained of his faith in the media. Wasn’t there one journalist out there who would challenge the Daily Beast’s narrative before it cemented—just one journalist who might stand up and say, “Can we at least see some of these ‘dirty memes’ before we ruin a man’s reputation?” But any hopes of something like that were effectively extinguished by a prominent tech blogger named Anil Dash who—according to his website—had been cited in “hundreds of academic papers” and “sources ranging from the New York Times to the BBC”; and who—on the evening of September 22—tweeted the following to his 590,000 followers on Twitter:
6:15 PM @ANILDASH:
One reason every political hashtag on Twitter is filled with racist trolls? The founder of Oculus is funding them.4
6:18 PM @ANILDASH:
This guy, @PalmerLuckey, put some of his billion FB dollars toward explicitly funding white supremacy.5
In two tweets, Dash was willing to explicitly state what The Daily Beast had merely implied. And in doing so, he gave cover to other journalists who—over the next 24 hours—would push the details of this engaging narrative farther and farther and farther. At 7:04 p.m., Boing Boing would report that Luckey was funding a “tactical team that churns out racist, sexist, hatey anti-Hillary Clinton memes and works to make them go viral.” At 8:08 p.m., Business Insider would report that Luckey’s troll factory “may be most closely associated with the kinds of anti-Clinton Facebook memes that even strident Donald Trump supporters roll their eyes at . . .”
8:09 PM @TTLABSVR:
Hey @oculus, @PalmerLuckey’s actions are unacceptable. NewtonVR will not be supporting the Oculus Touch as long as he is employed there.
8:11 AM @SAMFBIDDLE:
this guy turned out to be an immense shithead? no way
8:19 PM @LEFTWINGMILITIA:
The French Revolution 2.0 is coming & we’ll see your head fall into basket of deplorables.
8:26 PM @PAPAPISHU:
Excited for the new PlayStation VR slogan “VR. . . . Without The Holocaust Memes”
8:46 PM @LUKEPLUNKETT:
Musk: let’s go to Mars!
Luckey: whitesupremacistmeme.jpg
9:03 PM @GHOSTOFGHOSTDAD:
Will I catch racism if I try on an Oculus headset?
On and on it went—the tweets inspiring articles, and the articles inspiring more tweets; it was the whole machine in all its glory: a feedback loop as outrageous as it was engaging.
For a moment, Luckey felt the fragments of previous furies—of entitlement checks, of shipping delays, of “selling out” to Facebook. But even with the familiarity of those flashbacks, Luckey could tell that this one was likely to be different due the political twist. And if he had any doubts about that, those were gone by the time he received an unexpected call from someone “in the loop” at Facebook.
“I’m not telling you this as a colleague,” the caller told Luckey, “but I’m telling you this as a friend: you need to get an employment attorney.”
The implication, of course, was that Luckey’s job was now in jeopardy. Initially, he found this difficult to believe—that he might be fired for donating 10k to a barely-one-week-old non-profit organization whose mission was to put up billboards in support of the Republican nominee for President. Besides, Luckey reasoned, if his job really was in jeopardy, then surely would have received a heads up from Iribe (who wasn’t just “in the loop,” but was actually a member of Zuckerberg’s ten-or-so-person inner-circle “M-Team.”)
In addition to his relationship with Iribe, there was something else that gave Luckey confidence: the California Labor Code. Specifically, two sections of the California Labor Code—both of which had been on the books since 1937 6:
Nevertheless, Luckey figured it better to be safe than sorry, so he made a few calls and found an employment attorney. And it was a good thing for him that he did, because the following night—by that point shaking with rage—Luckey would compose himself for long enough to tell Edelmann that “they said that I have to resign tomorrow.”
FROM THE MOMENT THE DAILY BEAST STORY BROKE, LUCKEY HAD WANTED TO issue internal and external responses as soon as possible. And as per that earlier email from the head of comms—the one about issuing a statement “in the next 30 minutes”—this had been the original plan. But that plan quickly changed after the statement that Luckey drafted was run up the chain at Facebook and deemed unacceptable to share. Specifically, as was soon made clear to Luckey, there was “no way” that he’d be permitted to post any statements that expressed support for Donald Trump.
Unsurprisingly, Luckey pushed back on this; though, eventually, doing so became (at least temporarily) moot. Because with Thursday turning to Friday, the plan was to wait until the morning and finalize Luckey’s plan then.
“Are you really going to resign?” Edelmann asked.
“Fuck no,” Luckey replied, momentarily refilling with the rage that had consumed him over the past couple of hours.
Anyone who truly knew Luckey knew that he’d rather die than exit from Oculus. Which meant, really, that things were about to get very messy; because, as he and Edelmann lay down for bed, Luckey was well aware that, the following morning, Facebook’s plan was for him tender his resignation.
THAT PLAN, HOWEVER, WOULD SOON EVOLVE. AS DID THE COVERAGE OF LUCKEY and his donation to Nimble America. By the time he awoke on September 23, the story had metastasized to include Edelmann. “She frequently shit-talks feminist Anita Sarkeesian, mocks ‘SJWs,’ and tweets pictures of herself at Trump events,” Gizmodo reporter Bryan Menegus wrote.7 Articles like that were largely spurred by something Edelmann had tweeted from a Trump rally back in May: “Love the diversity of people here!”8,9 And though Edelmann had meant those words sincerely (“I met so many great people from all different races, ages, and backgrounds!”), her comment was presumed to be sarcastic and reported as evidence of bigotry.
Luckey thought it inappropriate for his girlfriend to be brought into the discussion at all. If the media wanted to go after him, fine. But going after Edelmann—whose Twitter feed soon became so inundated with insults and threats that she disabled her account—that was just classless.
Luckey wanted to fight back. He wanted to defend his girlfriend, he wanted to clarify his political views, and he wanted to correct every single falsehood that had been written about him over the past twelve hours. But Facebook continued to drag its feet, though—at least—Luckey would soon be informed why: at some point since the previous evening, Facebook had decided that they would not be forcing him to resign. Luckey presumed that it was because their attorneys had quickly brushed up on the California Labor Code, although that seemed unlikely given what he’d be forced to do instead.
MEANWHILE, THE BAD PRESS CONTINUED TO MOUNT. AT 6:32 A.M.—WITH THE headline “How your Oculus Rift is secretly funding Donald Trump’s racist meme wars”—Ars Technica informed its readers that “the stream of racist, sexist, and economically illiterate memes appearing in support of Donald Trump . . . is being bankrolled in part by the 24-year-old inventor of Oculus Rift.” At 6:47 AM, Motherboard boldly asked “What Does Alt-Right Patron Palmer Luckey Believe?” And at 6:59 a.m., Mashable reported that Luckey had funded an organization that “aims to circulate anti-Hillary memes across the internet”; the piece also noted that “many people in the tech world were not amused”; and then linked back to a series of angry tweets (including that initial one from Anil Dash—the one about Luckey “funding” “racist trolls”).
“BRENDAN, THIS IS ILLEGAL,” LUCKEY TOLD IRIBE LATER THAT DAY, AFTER RECEIVING a copy of the statement that he would be required to post—a statement that came “directly from Mark,” and which Luckey would not be allowed to alter in any way:
I am deeply sorry that my actions are negatively impacting the perception of Oculus and its partners. The recent news stories about me do not accurately represent my views.
Here’s more background: I contributed $10,000 to Nimble America because I thought the organization had fresh ideas on how to communicate with young voters through the use of several billboards. I am a libertarian who has publicly supported Ron Paul and Gary Johnson in the past.
I am committed to the principles of fair play and equal treatment. I did not write the “NimbleRichMan” posts, nor did I delete the account. In fact, I am not even supporting Donald Trump in this election; I’m supporting Gary Johnson. Reports that I am a founder or employee of Nimble America are false. I don’t have any plans to donate beyond what I have already given to Nimble America.
Still, my actions were my own and do not represent Oculus. I’m sorry for the impact my actions are having on the community.
“Brendan,” Luckey repeated, “this is illegal!”
Perhaps, Iribe conceded, but then—knowing what Luckey cared about most of all—he made a very good point: if you fight this, you may one day win a lawsuit; but even if that were to happen, you’d still be gone from Oculus.
As Luckey weighed Iribe’s words, he felt the chill of what it would actually be like to be gone from Oculus—to be ejected from the organization that he had worked his entire adult life to build.
“Brendan,” Luckey told Iribe, “Oculus is literally everything I have.”
Iribe agreed, which is why he gave Luckey what sounded like brotherly advice: find Jesus and become a big, vocal Gary Johnson supporter. All things considered, this statement didn’t seem like that big of a deal. If saying this one thing would get you off the hook for murder, you’d say that thing, wouldn’t you?
Ultimately, that’s what Luckey decided to do—to suppress his views and post the lie so that he could avoid losing that which he considered to be everything. For hours, Luckey and his attorneys tried to get in a few tweaks to the statement, but eventually it became extremely clear that there would be no revisions to the statement that came from Mark. Except for one thing: the line about not supporting Trump.
Why this concession? Perhaps cooler heads prevailed. Luckey would have liked to think it was because of something like that. But much more likely it was because someone convinced Zuckerberg that forcing an employee to denounce support of a politician crossed a line. Or maybe it was just because there were enough people in Silicon Valley—not many, but enough—who would know that such a denouncement was verifiably false.
Regardless, at 7:10 p.m., Luckey posted on his personal Facebook page the statement that Zuckerberg had written.10