![Palmer Luckey Backs Trump With Shell Companies Using Chrono Trigger Names [Updated]](https://www.kotaku.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/20/psj6mqzcjbdwuyavhzcj.png?quality=75&w=640&h=360&crop=1)
Oculus Rift founder Palmer Luckey, who last year spent a lot of money helping Donald Trump get elected, has since spent a lot of money helping Trump throw some big parties.
[referenced url=”https://www.kotaku.com.au/2016/09/oculus-rift-founder-funding-trump-shitposters/” thumb=”https://i.kinja-img.com/gawker-media/image/upload/t_ku-large/nshz4jz7voaq9lcztq2q.jpg” title=”Oculus Rift Founder Palmer Luckey Funding Trump Shitposters” excerpt=”Palmer Luckey, the founder of Oculus Rift, has been keeping busy since he sold the company to Facebook in 2014. One thing he’s done to pass the time, as reported by The Daily Beast, is to financially back (and be named Vice President of) a company dedicated to alt-right meme shitposts.”]
As reported by Mother Jones, Luckey — who last year tried to deny he was a Trump supporter — has since donated $US100,000 ($133,395) to Trump’s inauguration committee, basically the fund that was used to help the US president celebrate his election victory.
That donation was made through a company called Wings of Time. California business records indicate Luckey is also the owner of a company at the same address called Fiendlord’s Keep.
Both of which are references to 1995 JRPG classic Chrono Trigger, one of his favourite video games.
UPDATE (12:40PM, 19 May 2017): Luckey has pushed back against the idea he was using a shell company, saying that “the company they are calling a shell corporation is actually an ongoing business with healthy revenue, multiple employees and mostly non-cash assets…”:
Don’t believe Fake News from @washingtonpost, @Kotaku, @Polygon etc saying I “hid” inauguration donation behind “shell corporations”. Sad! pic.twitter.com/5k2Bi6c7lJ
— Palmer Luckey (@PalmerLuckey) May 17, 2017
Wings of Time appears to be a company involved with transportation and as such we should have called it a “side company” or “company”, separate from his former gig at Facebook. Fiendlord’s Keep owns Wings. We have updated the story to refer to both as, simply that, “companies”, as it was always our intent to focus on the names Luckey gave them, not their status. We apologise for the confusion.
Comments
14 responses to “Palmer Luckey Backs Trump With Shell Companies Using Chrono Trigger Names [Updated]”
“Man spends money on things, more at 11.”
im as anti-trump as the next person and i agree with your post
That was the old story. This one is more along the lines, “Man assures everyone he isn’t spending money on a thing, tries to hide the fact he kept spending money on the thing he said he wasn’t, then got found out anyway.”
Given how much he was ripped into for it all last time round you can hardly blame him for wanting to hide it.
Of course. But implicitly keeping a secret and explicitly telling a lie are pretty different by most standards. $100,000 is a lot of money to give to someone he says he doesn’t support.
Honestly I can’t even keep track of what was lies and what wasn’t any more, the word’s nearly lost meaning to me with how frivolously it gets thrown around when Palmer/Oculus stuff comes into play. Though of course it doesn’t really help that I’m too disinterested in the details of politics to know what the significance of this is really, who Gary Johnson is, what exactly falls under “pro-Trump”, or why any of it is such a big deal that every must get angry about it.
I’m actually pretty amazed that people still think they can hide and lie about things like this these days, especially with the internet being what it is.
People dig shit like this up just because they can, the Trump of it all is pretty irrelevant to that particular internet past time.
Interesting to see if this has a knock-on effect or not. The initial story drew some heat for Palmer L, but then he came out saying he wasn’t pro-Trump and it all went away.
Busted.
Microsoft will assumedly have teeth clenched if they are planning a Scorpio+OR announcement at E3. I suspect they’re now looking at more generalist A/VR devices to partner with (like they did with Win10).
Don’t underestimate the impact backing Trump has on the bottom line.
So Trump is good for gamers?
I can imagine Palmer Luckey sitting on a throne of cash, with /r/the_donald open on one screen, and his HTC Vive on the other, laughing maniacally at BuzzFeed’esque stories such as these.
It’s really s**t to have one of the best games of all time linked to such narcissists.
Yup it’s really disheartening.
So Palmer Luckey supported a politician he likes, hiding it to avoid articles by smug jerks who act like he’s not allowed to support politicians he’s interested in?
Video Games are allowed to be as political as you want… as long as you’re a lefty.
Mate, people are free to do what they like:
– Luckey is free to support whoever he wants.
– Everyone is free to criticise Luckey (or anyone else) for their choices.
– Customers are free to choose not to do business with Oculus any more because of Luckey’s choices.
Luckey could have just said nothing about his donations if he wanted to keep them quiet but he didn’t, he said outright that he doesn’t support Trump. So it kinda raises attention when someone who says they don’t support a politician ends up donating $100,000 to help that politician throw a party for himself. It looks a lot like what he told everyone before was a lie, and people don’t like to be lied to.
Erg. What a horrible person. Please go away Luke and play with your billions somewhere else. I heard Saudi Arabia is nice this time of the year.