Palmer Luckey—Fired by Facebook/Meta reportedly over political donations, receiving $100M+ payout
Palmer Luckey was terminated from Facebook/Meta in March 2017 with no official explanation. Internal emails obtained by WSJ showed executives including Zuckerberg pressured Luckey to publicly claim he supported Gary Johnson rather than Trump. Luckey hired an employment lawyer and negotiated a $100M+ payout citing California employment law violations. In 2024, Meta CTO Andrew Bosworth publicly apologized for his ousting.
Scoring Impact
| Topic | Direction | Relevance | Contribution |
|---|---|---|---|
| Worker Rights | -against | primary | -1.00 |
| Overall incident score = | -0.057 | ||
Score = avg(topic contributions) × significance (medium ×1) × confidence (0.57)× agency (incidental ×0.1)
Evidence (1 signal)
WSJ reported internal emails showed Facebook pressured Luckey over political views
The Wall Street Journal obtained internal Facebook emails showing executives pressured Palmer Luckey to publicly claim he supported Gary Johnson rather than Donald Trump.