{"id":34353,"date":"2025-01-15T23:27:00","date_gmt":"2025-01-15T23:27:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.christianitytoday.com\/pastors\/preaching\/sermon-illustrations\/billionaire-sues-after-getting-trapped-in-his-own-elevator\/"},"modified":"2025-01-15T23:27:00","modified_gmt":"2025-01-15T23:27:00","slug":"billionaire-sues-after-getting-trapped-in-his-own-elevator","status":"publish","type":"sermon-illustrations","link":"https:\/\/www.christianitytoday.com\/pastors\/preaching\/sermon-illustrations\/billionaire-sues-after-getting-trapped-in-his-own-elevator\/","title":{"rendered":"Billionaire Sues After Getting Trapped in His Own Elevator"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Palmer Luckey, is a billionaire tech entrepreneur who founded Oculus and parlayed that fortune into a career as a Silicon Valley defense contractor. Luckey collects cars and he needed a place to store them. According to <em>Forbes<\/em>, when his classic car collection had outgrown his $12.5 million oceanfront mansion in Newport Beach, California, the solution was obvious: Buy the $3.8 million house across the road, demolish it, and build an elaborate 7,000 square foot building with four car elevators.<\/p>\n\n<p>The project went smoothly &mdash; until Luckey got trapped in his own car elevator for 10 minutes. That&rsquo;s according to a new lawsuit Luckey took out against the contractor responsible for building the elevator.<\/p>\n\n<p>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&rsquo;s allegations. Custom Cabs told <em>Forbes<\/em> that it had filed a motion to strike the lawsuit&rsquo;s claims. WT Durant said it had worked with Luckey several times before this incident and that he&rsquo;d never before had an issue.<\/p>\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading is-style-article-subhead2\"><em>Possible Preaching Angle: <\/em><\/h2>\n\n<p><em>Wealthy people are often tempted to spend their money indulging in luxuries and extravagant items. On the other hand, the poor are struggling more and more. They experience severe challenges like hunger, lack of housing, and inequality. This situation highlights the growing divide between the rich and the poor which is a significant issue in our society. God&rsquo;s people are called to be generous and share the blessings God has given to them (Luke 6:38; 1 John 3:17)<\/em><\/p>","protected":false},"author":30,"featured_media":0,"template":"","tax_ctp_audience":[],"tax_ctp_authors":[],"tax_ctp_categories":[165],"tax_ctp_format":[171],"tax_ctp_illustration_types":[411],"tax_ctp_multimedia":[],"tax_ctp_point_editor":[433],"tax_publications":[140],"tax_ctp_tags":[3396,3681,3682,3962,3991,4100,4181,4192,4401,4410,4434,4435,4488,4666,4843,5266,5302],"tax_ctp_topics":[387,392,395],"class_list":["post-34353","sermon-illustrations","type-sermon-illustrations","status-publish","hentry","tax_publications-ct-pastors","tax_ctp_tags-affluence","tax_ctp_tags-consumer-mentality","tax_ctp_tags-consumerism","tax_ctp_tags-family-of-god","tax_ctp_tags-finances","tax_ctp_tags-greed","tax_ctp_tags-human-nature","tax_ctp_tags-humility","tax_ctp_tags-love-of-money","tax_ctp_tags-luxury","tax_ctp_tags-material-possessions","tax_ctp_tags-materialism","tax_ctp_tags-money","tax_ctp_tags-possessions","tax_ctp_tags-riches","tax_ctp_tags-wealth","tax_ctp_tags-worldliness"],"acf":{"scripture_references":[{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null},{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null},{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null},{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null},{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null},{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null},{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null},{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null},{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null},{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null},{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null},{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null},{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null},{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null},{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null}]},"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v22.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Billionaire Sues After Getting Trapped in His Own Elevator - CT Pastors<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.christianitytoday.com\/pastors\/preaching\/sermon-illustrations\/billionaire-sues-after-getting-trapped-in-his-own-elevator\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Billionaire Sues After Getting Trapped in His Own Elevator - CT Pastors\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Palmer Luckey, is a billionaire tech entrepreneur who founded Oculus and parlayed that fortune into a career as a Silicon Valley defense contractor. Luckey collects cars and he needed a place to store them. According to Forbes, when his classic car collection had outgrown his $12.5 million oceanfront mansion in Newport Beach, California, the solution Read more...\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.christianitytoday.com\/pastors\/preaching\/sermon-illustrations\/billionaire-sues-after-getting-trapped-in-his-own-elevator\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"CT Pastors\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:publisher\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/CTPastors\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/www.christianitytoday.com\/pastors\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/19\/2025\/12\/ogimage.png?resize=1200,628\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"1200\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"628\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/png\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:site\" content=\"@CTpastors\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.christianitytoday.com\/pastors\/preaching\/sermon-illustrations\/billionaire-sues-after-getting-trapped-in-his-own-elevator\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.christianitytoday.com\/pastors\/preaching\/sermon-illustrations\/billionaire-sues-after-getting-trapped-in-his-own-elevator\/\",\"name\":\"Billionaire Sues After Getting Trapped in His Own Elevator - CT Pastors\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.christianitytoday.com\/pastors\/#website\"},\"datePublished\":\"2025-01-15T23:27:00+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2025-01-15T23:27:00+00:00\",\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.christianitytoday.com\/pastors\/preaching\/sermon-illustrations\/billionaire-sues-after-getting-trapped-in-his-own-elevator\/#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.christianitytoday.com\/pastors\/preaching\/sermon-illustrations\/billionaire-sues-after-getting-trapped-in-his-own-elevator\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.christianitytoday.com\/pastors\/preaching\/sermon-illustrations\/billionaire-sues-after-getting-trapped-in-his-own-elevator\/#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/www.christianitytoday.com\/pastors\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"Billionaire Sues After Getting Trapped in His Own Elevator\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.christianitytoday.com\/pastors\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.christianitytoday.com\/pastors\/\",\"name\":\"CT Pastors\",\"description\":\"Timeless wisdom for pastors with forward-thinking solutions\",\"publisher\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.christianitytoday.com\/pastors\/#organization\"},\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\/\/www.christianitytoday.com\/pastors\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":\"required name=search_term_string\"}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"Organization\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.christianitytoday.com\/pastors\/#organization\",\"name\":\"Christianity Today\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.christianitytoday.com\/pastors\/\",\"logo\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.christianitytoday.com\/pastors\/#\/schema\/logo\/image\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.christianitytoday.com\/pastors\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/19\/2025\/08\/logo_ctpastors_black.svg\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/www.christianitytoday.com\/pastors\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/19\/2025\/08\/logo_ctpastors_black.svg\",\"caption\":\"Christianity Today\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.christianitytoday.com\/pastors\/#\/schema\/logo\/image\/\"},\"sameAs\":[\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/CTPastors\",\"https:\/\/x.com\/CTpastors\"]}]}<\/script>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Billionaire Sues After Getting Trapped in His Own Elevator - CT Pastors","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.christianitytoday.com\/pastors\/preaching\/sermon-illustrations\/billionaire-sues-after-getting-trapped-in-his-own-elevator\/","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Billionaire Sues After Getting Trapped in His Own Elevator - CT Pastors","og_description":"Palmer Luckey, is a billionaire tech entrepreneur who founded Oculus and parlayed that fortune into a career as a Silicon Valley defense contractor. 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