Virtual Reality’s Boy Wonder Draws Fire at Facebook Trial

  • Oculus Rift designer Palmer Luckey accused of spilling secrets
  • ‘I didn’t take confidential code,’ Luckey tells Dallas jury

Palmer Luckey, founder and inventor of Oculus VR.

Photographer: Ramin Talaie/Corbis via Getty Images
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The young entrepreneur credited as the brains behind Facebook Inc.’s virtual reality headset was accused in court of betraying a company that had worked with him to display the technology at a trade show.

Oculus VR founder Palmer Luckey, whose startup was bought by the social media giant for about $2 billion in 2014 when he was 21, didn’t dispute that he used software developed by ZeniMax Media Inc. to show the prototype for his headset to investors in a California hotel room two years earlier. That was shortly after ZeniMax had demonstrated the device publicly at a Los Angeles video game expo with Luckey’s permission.