Oculus founder Palmer Luckey virtually disappeared from the public eye last year after it came to light that he had donated $10,000 to Nimble America, a right-wing political nonprofit that ran inflammatory billboard campaigns against presidential candidate Hillary Clinton. Now, Luckey is leaving the company for good.

Facebook Inc., which bought the virtual reality phenom in 2014 for roughly $3 billion, has confirmed that Luckey (pictured) is leaving the company, but the social media giant did not offer an explanation, nor did it say if Luckey chose to leave of his own accord.

“Palmer will be dearly missed,” a Facebook spokesperson said. “Palmer’s legacy extends far beyond Oculus. His inventive spirit helped kickstart the modern VR revolution and helped build an industry. We’re thankful for everything he did for Oculus and VR, and we wish him all the best.”

Luckey founded Oculus in 2012 when he was just 19 years old, and the company helped spark today’s rapidly growing virtual reality industry. In addition to creating the high-end Oculus Rift headset, the company partnered with Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd. for the Samsung Gear VR, which has become one of the most successful VR devices on the market. Oculus has also formed partnerships with hardware vendors, game studios and a number of other major businesses, moves that have helped position it as one of the leaders of the VR industry.

Despite the success of Oculus and VR, the past year has been a difficult one for both the company and for Luckey. In addition to the controversy surrounding his support of Nimble America, Luckey was also at the center of game publisher ZeniMax Media LLC’s lawsuit against Oculus, which ended with a $500 million judgement against Oculus VR Inc.

In its suit, ZeniMax said that Luckey signed a nondisclosure agreement when the company shared information with him on some of the VR technology it had been developing. ZeniMax claimed that Luckey broke this agreement when he decided to found Oculus and create his own VR headset, the Oculus Rift, and the company accused Oculus of stealing trade secrets to create the Rift.

The court ultimately decided that Oculus did not steal trade secrets from ZeniMax, but it did rule that Oculus had infringed on the company’s copyrights, and it held Luckey personally responsible for $50 million of the final judgment because of his violation of the NDA.

It is unclear how involved Luckey has been with the operations at Oculus since he stepped back last year, but it seems unlikely at this point that his departure will have a significant effect on the company itself. Luckey has yet to issue a statement of his own, and he has been completely absent from social media since September.

Photo: Oculus VR via Twitch