Zuckerberg Pushed Top Facebook Exec to Disavow Trump, Then Fired Him

It seems like we should’ve heard more about this.  The Daily Wire points out a story that was first published in the Wall Street Journal by reporters Kirsten Grind and Keach Hagey, and it seems like the story just sort of went away.

It shouldn’t.

Here’s what happened.  Tech guru and Facebook creator Mark Zuckerberg pressured one of his top executives to apologize for his support of President Trump in the 2016 election.  To make matters worse, he asked him to issue a public letter just right before people were to vote explaining he no longer supported Trump, but had decided instead to support libertarian Gary Johnson.

Oculus founder Palmer Luckey was put on leave and then fired for supporting for Trump, even though he’d supported him for many years.  In September 2016, Luckey donated $10,000 to an anti-Hillary ad group.  In an anonymous social media post, he wrote, “Hillary Clinton is corrupt, a warmonger, a freedom-stripper. Not the good kind you see dancing in bikinis on Independence day, the bad kind that strips freedom from citizens and grants it to donors.”

So, it makes sense that he would want Trump to win, right?

Apparently, Zuckerberg wasn’t about that.  According to the Wall Street Journal:

In the fall of 2016, as unhappiness over the donation simmered, Facebook executives including Mr. Zuckerberg pressured Mr. Luckey to publicly voice support for libertarian candidate Gary Johnson, despite Mr. Luckey’s yearslong support of Mr. Trump, according to people familiar with the conversations and internal emails viewed by The Wall Street Journal.

Though Facebook denies Luckey was fired for supporting Trump, he sure did get heat over it:

Facebook employees complained about Luckey both via message boards and at a town hall, with engineering director Srinivas Narayanan writing, “Multiple women have literally teared up in front of me in the last few days,” and some developers stating that they wouldn’t work with Luckey.

According to the Daily Wire, Luckey ended up getting a “$100 million settlement, an acceleration of stock awards and bonuses that he would have received thanks to his sale of Oculus VR to Facebook in 2014.”

Which is good, but honestly your freedom of speech and conscience cannot be bought.

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: it’s scary that so much of modern communication goes through channels that are controlled by leftist activists.

Hat Tip: Daily Wire
Image Credit: Flickr