Oculus VR founder Palmer Luckey on Monday shared on Twitter that he had also been a victim of sloppy reporting on separate occasions by Taylor Lorenz and The Washington Post. This thread follows days after Lorenz and WaPo were caught in a “correction scandal” for her analysis of the Johnny Depp-Amber Heard trial.
Luckey shared two instances of what he called false reports. The first being when Lorenz, who was then reporting for The Hill, wrote that he announced he was leaving Facebook in March 2017. Facebook had previously acquired Oculus VR from Luckey. The Oculus founder shared that the 2017 report was, in fact, false, as leaving was not his choice nor was the announcement his.
Luckey was fired from Facebook after he received public outcry for his support for Donald Trump in the 2016 presidential election.
Lorenz then replied to Luckey’s posts claiming that she had never covered Oculus.
Shortly after, Lorenz blocked Luckey on Twitter.
The second instance involves a 2017 WaPo story that claimed Luckey hid contributions to the Trump campaign using a shell company, and that he refused to comment when the publication reached out to him.
According to Luckey, it was a single donation that was made through a “regular company,” and that WaPo reached out to him for comment at 5:54 a.m., seven minutes before the article went to print. WaPo, in the original version of the article, indicated that “messages left with Luckey and his attorney were not returned.”
When he called the publication out, WaPo qualified that the note about him not returning messages is technically true, although this was later edited, without note, to “Luckey declined to comment.”
As for the claims of the shell company, Luckey said that WaPo said that they would edit the story if he provided the publication with documents proving that his helicopter business is not a shell company.
He added that the publication then “deleted everything with no disclosure.” But this part is unclear as a comparison of the current version and the original version of the article shows only that the part about him declining to comment was changed.
Information for this briefing was found via the Washington Post, Twitter, and the sources mentioned. The author has no securities or affiliations related to the organizations discussed. Not a recommendation to buy or sell. Always do additional research and consult a professional before purchasing a security. The author holds no licenses.
