The defense tech startup Anduril is making some of the most futuristic autonomous weapons on the market as it tries to reinvent the military’s wheelhouse.
But the company’s forward-thinking vision hasn’t stopped founder Palmer Luckey from amassing his own collection of older military-grade vehicles and boy’s toys.
The billionaire’s collection includes a boat bought from the US Navy, six helicopters, and a 1985 ex-Marine Corps Humveefighter, he revealed in the latest episode of Bloomberg’s “The Circuit.”
That’s land, sea, and air covered.
Luckey’s Mark V special operations craft, which he purchased from the Navy, is the fastest boat ever built by the force with a little over 5,000 horsepower, he told reporter Emily Chang as he took her for a ride on the vessel around Newport Beach.
“It was designed specifically for Navy seal insertion and extraction missions. It runs really fast, and it’s a lot of fun.”
He still has the real M2 heavy-barreled 50 BMG machine gun that came with the boat but keeps fake ones fitted “most of the time.”
“Most of my neighbors like it, and a handful hate it.”
Luckey first made his name when he founded virtual reality company Oculus in 2012. Two years later, he sold the company to Facebook, now known as Meta, for $2 billion in cash and stock.
In 2017, one year after he was fired from Facebook, Luckey founded Anduril. It’s since risen to the top of Silicon Valley’s defense tech boom.
But his passion for the military started when he was young, Luckey told The Circuit.
“I grew up watching the Marine Corps practice right offshore in their helicopters. Watching Navy ships do exercises gets in your brain, and it doesn’t leave.”
He’s now the proud owner of six helicopters, including a UH-60 Blackhawk.
In addition to military-grade vehicles, Luckey owns a 1967 Disneyland Autopia, a toy car used in Disney theme parks, designed by legendary park designer Bob Gurr and Walt Disney himself.
“As far as I know, mine is the only complete Autopia that is outside of the parks. Mine has the original mechanicals, original gear boxes, original wheels, the whole deal,” Luckey told Chang.
The small vehicle, typically seen tearing up Disneyland race tracks, suffered a minor breakdown mid-interview and had to be fixed with a flathead screwdriver.
The founder also took cameras into his 1980s-designed home in LA. Fitted with a two-inch thick teal shag carpet and a 6,500-gallon aquarium, Luckey’s home has “some good Miami Vice vibes,” he told Chang.
The coffee table is fitted with a map of his Dungeons and Dragons campaign, where he plays as a “chaotic neutral wizard named Nilrim V.”
As the billionaire founder himself admits, “I am a little bit of a caricature.”
But where to keep the world’s largest collection of video games?
“I put that in one of my missile bases. 200 feet underground,” Luckey told Chang.
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