# Palmer Luckey Founder of Oculus VR (sold to Facebook/Meta) and co-founder/CEO of [[Anduril]] Industries. The most prominent face of the new defense tech movement — building autonomous weapons systems with Silicon Valley speed and culture. ## Background - Founded Oculus VR as a teenager; sold to Facebook for $2B in 2014. - Fired from Facebook in 2017 amid controversy over funding pro-Trump political group "Nimble America." - Met [[Trae Stephens]] at a [[Founders Fund]] retreat in 2014; bonded over applying startup methods to defense. - Co-founded [[Anduril]] in 2017 with Stephens, Brian Schimpf, Joe Chen, and Matt Grimm. ## Anduril Under Luckey - Revenue ~$2B annually as of 2025. - Raising $4B at $60B valuation (March 2026) — doubled from $30B in just 9 months. - Won $20B U.S. Army contract (March 2026) for hardware, software, infrastructure, and services. - Arsenal-1 mega-factory in Ohio going live in weeks (March 2026) — first product: Fury collaborative combat aircraft. - Confirmed IPO plans to compete for trillion-dollar defense contracts. - Met with 10 Israeli defense startups in secret visit (2026). ## Ideology Luckey represents the unapologetic defense-tech founder archetype: believes Silicon Valley should enthusiastically build weapons for democracies, rejects the "dual-use" euphemism, and openly courts military contracts that Google and others have shied away from. ## Political Donations & Conflict Pattern Luckey is a major Republican donor whose donations correlate with Anduril's contract growth: - **2017**: $100,000 to Trump Inaugural Committee - **2024**: $400,000 to Trump campaign + $100,000 to Thune Victory Committee - **June 2024**: Co-hosted Trump fundraiser ($100,000 per attendee) - Dozens of additional donations to Republican candidates and organizations (OpenSecrets) While Luckey holds no government role, the donation → contract pattern is documented: his co-founder [[Trae Stephens]] served on the 2016 DOD transition team, and Anduril's contract growth tracks directly with Luckey's political giving. See: [[Defense Tech Conflicts of Interest]] ### Iran War Beneficiary (2026) Ed Elson's "Follow The Money" (Prof G Media, March 2026) places Luckey among the war's clearest beneficiaries during [[Iran War 2026]]: - Luckey hosted Trump fundraisers including a **Newport Beach roundtable at $100K/head**. - [[Anduril]] won Golden Dome participation, autonomous border surveillance, and drone work (including the YFQ-44A Collaborative Combat Aircraft). - Anduril's valuation has roughly **quadrupled since Trump took office** — the appreciation accelerating with the Iran war's procurement surge. See [[Trump Family Iran War Profiteering]] for the full beneficiary cluster. ## Erebor Bank Co-founded [[Erebor]] in 2025 with [[Joe Lonsdale]] — a digital-first national bank targeting the tech/defense/crypto ecosystem. Luckey is principal shareholder and board member but not involved in day-to-day operations. Valued at $4.35B after raising ~$635M from [[Founders Fund]], 8VC, Haun Ventures, and [[Lux Capital]]. Headquartered in Columbus, Ohio — miles from [[Anduril]]'s [[Arsenal-1]] mega-factory. Erebor's own fundraising documents stated "Palmer's political network will get this done" regarding regulatory approval, drawing Senator [[Elizabeth Warren]]'s "crony capitalism" investigation. See: [[Erebor]] ## Notable Quotes - [[Palmer Luckey - warrior class enacting violence]] — Pepperdine, Oct 2024: societies need "a warrior class… excited about enacting violence on others in pursuit of good aims." - [[Palmer Luckey - world police to world gun store]] — his signature foreign-policy line. - [[Palmer Luckey - propagandist who twists the truth]] — Pepperdine, Oct 2024: "Absolutely not, I'm a propagandist." ## See Also - [[Palmer Luckey Dossier]] — structured document collection (donations, ideology, inner circle, connections, holdings, timeline, quotes, calendar, events) - [[Anduril]] - [[Erebor]] - [[Trae Stephens]] - [[Founders Fund]] - [[Arsenal-1]] - [[Defense Tech Conflicts of Interest]] - [[Games and the Tech Elite]] — gaming-hardware fortune ([[Oculus]]) as the on-ramp to defense tech