The stream of racist, sexist, and economically illiterate memes appearing in support of Donald Trump during this years' interminable American presidential election is being bankrolled in part by the 24-year-old inventor of Oculus Rift.

Palmer Luckey, who came into a personal fortune worth $700 million (£535 million) when his VR headset firm was bought out by Facebook, has admitted to backing an unofficial pro-Trump political non-profit called Nimble America that is powering the tsunami of white supremacist and other racist image macros that have plagued Reddit.

According to research by the Daily Beast, Luckey is intimately involved with the group. He has also been active in r/The_Donald, the Reddit community that acts as something of a ground zero for endless election-related memes. Posting with the handle “NimbleRichMan,” the Oculus founder seems to have participated in a brief, now-deleted attempt to raise money from the group, which has fortunately been preserved by the Google cache. Various posts pertaining to the group on Reddit have latterly disappeared, according to the Beast.