Palmer Luckey

Palmer Luckey, Oculus founder, was fired from Meta in 2017 after it emerged he funded an anti-Hillary Clinton meme group — a donation of $10,000 that cost him a $2 billion stake. Critics called him a toxic Trump supporter, while fans praised his refusal to conform. He then founded Anduril, a defense contractor now valued at $8.5 billion for building AI-powered surveillance systems and autonomous weapons for the U.S. military. This pivot from VR to warfare is faster than any other tech CEO's career reversal on this list, and it polarizes more sharply than Kotick's workplace scandals because it frames a fundamental moral debate: is arming drones to kill abroad any better than exploiting developers at home?