Palmer Luckey, the billionaire tech bro who founded Oculus and parlayed that fortune into a career as a Silicon Valley defense contractor, got stuck in his own car elevator for 10 minutes. That’s according to a new lawsuit Luckey took out against the contractor responsible for building the elevator, as detailed by Forbes.
Luckey collects cars and he needed a place to store them. According to Forbes, he ran out of room for the cars at his Newport Beach, California mansion and decided to buy another house across the road and convert it into a fancy garage for all his toys. The new garage was elaborate and included four car lifts and a central passenger elevator.
David Peck, Luckey’s lawyer, told Forbes that Luckey and his contractor were trapped inside the elevator for more than 10 minutes.
According to the lawsuit, this has happened more than once and led to millions of dollars in damages. Custom Cabs and construction company WT Durant, who are the defendants in the case, have denied Luckey’s allegations. Custom Cabs told Forbes that it had filed a motion to strike the lawsuit’s claims. WT Durant said it had worked with Luckey several times before this incident and that he’d never before had an issue.
Tech billionaires with expensive mansions and tastes can’t catch a break lately. In July, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman filed a lawsuit that claimed his $27 million San Francisco was a lemon. Altman’s mansion, like Luckey’s, also has a fancy garage with a spinning plate that allows the storage of multiple cars. Altman, unlike Luckey, avoided getting trapped in his.
