While Republican presidential candidate Donald J. Trump doesn't draw a lot of support from Silicon Valley, that which he does tends to be, well, unique. We now have an Exhibit B is the case of rich eccentrics for Trump. Enter Palmer Luckey, the 24-year-old founder of virtual reality company Oculus, who The Daily Beast reports has been spending an unknown amount of his estimated $700 million in wealth on a troll army meant to prop up The Donald and attack Hillary Clinton.
The organization, not officially part of the Trump campaign, is a 501(c)4 called Nimble America. Its goal, according to its website, is to "reverse [America's] course towards mediocrity and globalism, becoming great again."
And just how, exactly, does it intend to do that? Via the power of skeezy internet trolling, of course.
"We’ve proven that shitposting is powerful and meme magic is real," explained the group's founders in a pro-Trump subreddit. "We conquered Reddit and drive narrative on social media, conquered the [mainstream media], now it’s time to get our most delicious memes in front of Americans whether they like it or not,” a Nimble America member further explained.
One such example of the aforementioned "meme magic," identified by The Daily Beast, is a Pittsburgh billboard with a cartoon image of Clinton and the words "too big to jail."
Although his involvement had initially been a secret, kept hidden under a reddit username, when asked Luckey confirmed to the publication that he had in fact been providing money to the group. “I’ve got plenty of money,” he explained. “Money is not my issue. I thought it sounded like a real jolly good time.”
This is a message from @PalmerLuckey, the founder of @Oculus. pic.twitter.com/CWlAA8ugMx
— Cody Brown (@CodyBrown) September 23, 2016
Luckey, who sold his company to Facebook for $2 billion in 2014, is a bit of a known oddball. In addition to cosplaying My Little Pony (which, fine), Gizmodo reports that he is in a relationship with noted GamerGater Nicole Edelmann, and The Daily Beast tells us that he's enlisted the assistance of alt-right icon Milo Yiannopoulos in his latest shitposting venture.
"The American Revolution was funded by wealthy individuals,” wrote Luckey over the weekend. “The same has been true of many movements for freedom in history. You can’t fight the American elite without serious firepower. They will outspend you and destroy you by any and all means.”
We now know that the super-wealthy nerd king has thrown some of his own firepower into the mix. Perhaps tired of virtual reality, Luckey decided to play around in the real one. This, we're sure, is fine.
Related: Peter Thiel Now Funding A Startup To Fund Third-Party Lawsuits