Mark Zuckerberg is downplaying the massive 5,000-square-foot bunker beneath his Hawaiian complex unveiled last year in WIRED And led to conspiracy theories on social media about rich technology moguls building doomsday bunkers.
The billionaire Facebook co-founder pushed back when Bloomberg reporter Emily Chang asked him what he was “worried about” — and whether there was any is something he knows ‘that we don’t know’. ” regarding the bunker.
“No, I think it’s just a little shelter,” he said to Chang. ‘It’s a cellar! It’s a cellar.”
Zuckerberg said the “base house” on Kauai is largely used for storage and that he often works from there, but admitted to visiting the underground bunker there and calling it a “hurricane shelter or whatever.”
“I think it’s been blown out of proportion, like the whole ranch is some kind of doomsday bunker, which is just not true,” he added.
In February, Ron Hubbard, the CEO of Atlas Survival Shelters, and Robert Vicino, founder of the underground survival shelter company Vivos, spoke to The Hollywood Reporter about how news of Zuckerberg’s bunker increased sales for them.
Hubbard said it had “sparked a buying frenzy,” while Vicino said: “Now that Zuckerberg has let the cat out of the bag, other people who share his status or are close to his status have started thinking, ‘Oh God, if he does, maybe he knows something I don’t know, maybe I should find out for myself. ”
David Zalubowski/Associated Press
Zuckerberg purchased the 1,400-acre property, known as Koolau Ranch, in a series of deals that began in 2014, WIRED reported in 2023. According to planning documents for the property reviewed by the outlet, the complex will have its own energy and have a food supply. supplies.
Construction of the complex and purchase of the land is estimated to have cost approximately $270 million. Zuckerberg told Chang that he and his wife, Priscilla Chan, use the property for ranching and that he wants to “create the highest quality beef in the world.”
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In addition to Zuckerberg, Bill Gates and Vicino are also said to be among the other bunker-owning tech magnates told THR in 2016 that Gates has “huge hiding places under all his houses.”
PayPal CEO Peter Thiel had similar plans for a bunker-like complex in New Zealand, but they were foiled in 2022 after opposition from local conservationists. according to The Guardian.
Zuckerberg’s ownership drew similar criticism from locals and indigenous groups in Kauai, with a former worker on the property telling WIRED, “It’s insane that a guy who’s not from Hawaii comes here and buys a bunch of land that the local population limited. [from potentially buying] country. But it’s already happening.”