Palmer Luckey Net Worth 2024

What is Palmer Luckey’s Net Worth?

Palmer Luckey is an American businessman and entrepreneur who has a net worth of $400 million. Luckey earned his fortune because the founding father of Oculus VR which he bought to Facebook in 2014 for $2 billion. That identical 12 months he received the Smithsonian journal’s American Ingenuity Award within the Youth class. Palmer is the inventor of Oculus’ most notable product, the digital actuality head-mounted show Oculus Rift. At 18 he created his first prototype, the CR1. His sixth technology was named the Rift. He raised cash to construct the Rift through Kickstarter. His Kickstarter marketing campaign finally raised $2.4 million, 974% of its unique purpose.

Outside of Facebook and Oculus, Palmer has earned notoriety because the monetary backer of a proper wing political group.

Facebook Earnings and Lawsuit

In 2016, Palmer donated $10,000 to an anti-Hillary Clinton group. This donation made him extraordinarily unpopular inside Facebook and finally led to his early dismissal from the corporate. Palmer was upset at his ouster and employed an employment lawyer who argued that what Facebook had completed was unlawful. His lawyer was capable of efficiently negotiate a $100 million payout from Facebook which represented the inventory awards he would have earned by July 2019. In complete, Palmer earned $600 million in money and inventory throughout his time at Facebook, together with the quantity from the unique sale.

Early Life

Luckey was born on September 19, 1992 in Long Beach, California. He grew up together with his two youthful sisters and was homeschooled by his mom whereas his father labored at a automotive dealership. Luckey was very vivid as a toddler, growing an curiosity in electronics and engineering from a younger age. He was taking neighborhood college programs on the age of 14 at Golden West College an Long Beach City College. He was deeply desirous about computer-generated gaming worlds, having already constructed a PC gaming system on his personal. This led to an obsession with digital actuality (VR) know-how. By the time he was 16, he was constructing VR headsets, which he funded by fixing and reselling broken iPhones and dealing different random odd jobs.

In 2010, he enrolled at California State University, Long Beach the place he majored in journalism and labored because the Online Editor for the scholar publication, “Daily49er.” He in the end dropped out of college to give attention to his VR innovations full-time.

Oculus

By 2010, Luckey had already efficiently construct his first working VR headset prototype in his mother and father’ storage. He continued enhancing on the prototype till he developed the 6^th technology mannequin, which he referred to as the Rift. He meant to promote the headset on Kickstarter and launched an organization, Oculus VR, in April of 2012 to facilitate the launch of the Kickstarter marketing campaign. He acquired some publicity from John Carmack, a sport developer, who had requested Luckey ship him the Rift prototype so he might reveal how gameplay would seem on the machine. He additionally acquired an endorsement from Gabe Newell, the managing director of the online game developer firm, Valve.

The Kickstarter marketing campaign was profitable and managed to boost virtually $2.5 million. Luckey expanded Oculus VR by hiring Brendan Iribe on as CEO, in addition to quite a few different staff to develop the corporate. The firm’s progress was observed by many within the tech world, together with Facebook who acquired Oculus VR in March of 2014 for $3 billion. The identical 12 months, Luckey was the recipient of “Smithsonian” journal’s American Ingenuity Award within the youth class.

Shortly following the acquisition, Luckey and Oculus VR had been concerned in a lawsuit introduced by ZeniMax Media who claimed that ZeniMax’s commerce secrets and techniques and copyrighted code had been stolen. The swimsuit resulted in a jury trial in 2017 wherein Luckey was discovered to be liable however after interesting, a choose in 2018 dismissed all of the damages owed by Luckey.

Meanwhile, Luckey was concerned in inner battle with Facebook. In 2016, he had donated cash to a pro-Donald Trump marketing campaign group, inflicting quite a few builders to cancel plans to assist or work with Oculus. In March of 2917, Luckey parted methods with Facebook and the precise nature of whether or not this break up was on his personal phrases or he was fired is unclear. Facebook and its executives deny that Luckey was dismissed as a result of his political beliefs although “The Wall Street Journal” obtained entry to emails which reportedly present Luckey was pressured to assist candidates aside from Trump. Regardless of what occurred, Luckey efficiently negotiated a payout from Facebook of round $100 million.

Anduril

In June of 2017, Luckey co-founded the protection know-how firm, Anduril, together with Matt Grimm, Trae Stephens, Brian Schimpf, and Joe Chen. By March of 2018, Anduril was conducting a pilot program for the U.S. Government which concerned the detection of unlawful immigrants coming into Texas alongside the U.S.-Mexican border. In the primary 12 days of its operation, this system led to the seize of 55 people who had been making an attempt to enter the nation.

In September of 2020, Luckey introduced that Anduril had signed a contract with the U.S. Air Force. It had been chosen as one of many distributors for undertaking Advanced Battle Management Systems.

Personal Life

Due to the success of his ventures, Luckey developed considerably of a public picture, as he was thought of the face of digital actuality in gaming. Despite his huge success and wealth, he usually maintains an informal look and for a very long time lived in a home together with his buddies, permitting him to play multiplayer video video games usually. It is believed by some that one of many characters within the in style HBO present, “Silicon Valley,” relies on Luckey.

Luckey is in a relationship with long-time girlfriend, Nicole Edelmann. Edelmann can be desirous about video video games and cosplay and the 2 met someday in 2014.

Politics

Since his donation to the Trump marketing campaign in 2016, Luckey has remained a supporter of Trump and now considers himself a member of the Republican occasion although he had beforehand recognized as a libertarian. In October of 2020, Luckey hosted a fundraise for Trump at his house in Newport Beach, which was attended by Trump. He has additionally donated to the campaigns of dozens of different Republican political candidates, reminiscent of Ted Cruz. Luckey additionally contributes to varied conservative-affiliated organizations just like the National Republican Congressional Committee and the Great American Committee.