{"id":144540,"date":"2025-05-30T16:25:07","date_gmt":"2025-05-30T16:25:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/144540\/"},"modified":"2025-05-30T16:25:07","modified_gmt":"2025-05-30T16:25:07","slug":"the-zuck-and-luckey-reunion-enshrines-big-techs-dude-bro-ification","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/144540\/","title":{"rendered":"The Zuck and Luckey Reunion Enshrines Big Tech’s Dude Bro-ification"},"content":{"rendered":"

Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg and Palmer Luckey, the original founder of Oculus VR who has since become a military contractor, weren\u2019t on the best of terms for many years. After all, Zuck is the one who fired Luckey after he helped establish Meta\u2019s entire VR business. That\u2019s now water under the bridge. There\u2019s major money to be made in military tech, but Zuckerberg and Luckey\u2014two nerds who made billions off their consumer products\u2014are also bound tight by their newfound ultra-masculine, Trump-supporting personas.<\/p>\n

On Thursday, the pair declared they were hitching themselves back together after their initial nasty divorce<\/a> and subsequent lawsuit<\/a> nearly a decade ago. Luckey\u2019s military contracting company, Anduril, and Meta announced they were going to make \u201cthe world\u2019s best\u201d AR and VR technology for the U.S. military. This initial project is dubbed \u201cEagleEye\u201d and, according to The Wall Street Journal<\/a>, will be some kind of \u201crugged\u201d VR system that could detect enemy soldiers or drones. The Oculus founder added that he and Zuck had been working on several projects \u201cfor a while now.\u201d That could include a joint bid for a U.S. Army contract worth approximately $100 million, according to the WSJ.<\/p>\n

\"X\u00a9 Screenshot: X \/ Anduril <\/p>\n

It\u2019s a real match made in murder. Microsoft had worked hard on a similar project called HoloLens that was supposed to provide soldiers with individual XR goggles. After years of development, initial tests back in 2022 went so poorly<\/a> soldiers said the devices gave them motion sickness, adding, \u201cThe devices would have gotten us killed.\u201d Microsoft killed off<\/a> its consumer-level HoloLens last year, but the company expected to do more tests of its XR devices this year. The Journal reported Aduril has replaced Microsoft as the leading vendor for military VR.<\/p>\n

Big tech companies see dollar signs, and it\u2019s no wonder they\u2019re so eager to claim a slice of the military-industrial complex pie. Luckey has long been a supporter of President Donald Trump. His donations to a pro-Trump group and his public endorsement of the U.S.-Mexico border wall were deciding factors<\/a> in his ouster from Facebook. Luckey all but confirmed it in a recent TED talk<\/a> where he said he was fired from the company for \u201cdonating $9,000 to the wrong political candidate.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

There is a lot of money to be made in military contracts. Elon Musk, whose company Starlink is a major U.S. contractor<\/a>, isn\u2019t the only CEO who has buddied up close to Trump for the sake of access<\/a> and new potential deals. Zuckerberg, alongside the CEOs of several major tech firms from Google to Amazon to Apple, donated millions of dollars<\/a> for Trump\u2019s inauguration and stood behind the wannabe authoritarian<\/a> while he was sworn in. All these companies have multi-billion ties<\/a> to the Pentagon, though tech giants like Google and Amazon try to keep their ties out of the limelight.<\/p>\n

So what\u2019s changed with Meta? The CEO of Andruil\u2014a company name he ripped from J.R.R. Tolkien\u2019s Lord of the Rings series\u2014has long been an ardent Trump fan, but shortly after the election, Zuckerberg had his moment to finally come clean<\/a> about his displeasure with all things having to do with diversity, equity, and inclusion<\/a>\u2014or DEI. The once-tweedy, nerdy Zuck has tried to transform his look as he\u2019s become a big fan of martial arts. <\/a>He said on Joe Rogan\u2019s podcast that he believes the workplace needs more \u201cmasculine energy,\u201d which in the end just means he will kill funding for nonprofits<\/a> and schools<\/a> that he doesn\u2019t think fit in his new worldview.<\/p>\n

The arms dealer\u2019s slicked-back mullet and soul patch framed by his typical Hawaiian shirts, cargo shorts, and sandals don\u2019t exactly gel with Zuckerberg\u2019s masculine makeover. The connection between the pair of wannabe warmongers is more than skin deep. Luckey has been outspoken of his love for the \u201cwarriors\u201d of the U.S. military. In past posts<\/a> to X, Luckey identified himself<\/a> as a \u201cwarrior\u201d since he helps provide the \u201ctools of violence.\u201d<\/p>\n

The bad blood between Luckey and Zuckerberg wouldn\u2019t survive the pair\u2019s transformation into their new \u201cwarrior\u201d identities. Yes, the contracts are lucrative enough to salve any lingering wounds, but the push into arms tech isn\u2019t driven merely by seeing dollar signs in the eyes. Both are committed to building a society that puts value on weapons and the armed forces above people. Perhaps they hope they\u2019ll both get a seat on the lead tank at Trump\u2019s fascist-flavored military parade<\/a> next month.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg and Palmer Luckey, the original founder of Oculus VR who has since become a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":144541,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3162],"tags":[597,2597,62371,53,16,15,3243,3244],"class_list":{"0":"post-144540","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-virtual-reality","8":"tag-mark-zuckerberg","9":"tag-military","10":"tag-palmer-luckey","11":"tag-technology","12":"tag-uk","13":"tag-united-kingdom","14":"tag-virtual-reality","15":"tag-vr"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114597719365191840","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/144540","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=144540"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/144540\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/144541"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=144540"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=144540"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=144540"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}