Mark Zuckerberg dismissed reports that he is building a 5,000-square-foot “Doomsday bunker” underneath a $270 million compound in Hawaii — insisting instead that it’s just a “little shelter.”
The 40-year-old tech tycoon was asked during a Dec. 19 interview with Bloomberg about rumors that he is constructing an underground facility beneath his 1,400-acre home on the island of Kauai, one of the most northern islands in the Northern Pacific archipelago.
“No, I think that’s just like a little shelter. It’s like a basement,” Zuckerberg, the third wealthiest person in the world behind Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos, told Bloomberg’s Emily Chang.
Several wealthy individuals have been rumored to have constructed vast tunnels and underground networks in preparation for potential disaster, including PayPal co-founder Peter Thiel, Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates, Tesla CEO Musk and disgraced rapper Kanye “Ye” West.
Zuckerberg, who as of Thursday boasted a net worth valued by Bloomberg Billionaires Index at $215 billion, has insisted that the aim of the ranch is to raise “world-class” cattle on beer and macadamia nuts in order to “create some of the highest quality beef in the world.”
In December of last year, Wired reported that Zuckerberg was in the process of constructing Koolau Ranch, a 1,400-acre compound that includes a 5,000-square-foot underground shelter as well as more than a dozen buildings with at least 30 bedrooms and 30 bathrooms in total.
The shelter alone is about the size of an NBA basketball court and more than twice the size of the average private family home in the US, according to the report.
The ranch will have it own energy and food supplies, according to the Wired report, which noted that the locals on the island with a population of about 73,000 people were speculating about what the project will entail.
The centerpiece of the project is two mansions that boast total floor area that is about the size of a football field — 57,000 square feet, according to the report.
The two mansions will reportedly be linked together by a tunnel that branches off into the underground facility.
Each of the dozen or so buildings that include guest houses and operations facilities will be connected by rope bridges that allow visitors to cross from one building to the next while making stops at 11 disk-shaped treehouses.
One of the buildings is reportedly going to be equipped with a full-size gym, pools, sauna, a hot tub, a cold plunge and a tennis court, according to WIRED and Hawaii News Now.
The property, which is likely to be one of the most expensive in the world, is also said to include several elevators, offices, conference rooms and an industrial-sized kitchen.
Unconfirmed reports indicate that the shelter will have a “blast-resistant door” made of metal and filled in with concrete as well as a living space, a mechanical room and an escape hatch that can be accessed via a ladder.
The Zuckerbergs are also reported to have installed some 20 security cameras just for one of the buildings on the ranch alone, according to WIRED.
The compound’s doors are said to be keypad-operated or soundproofed while doors to the library are so-called “blind doors” which are designed to imitate the design of the surrounding walls, according to WIRED.
Planning documents obtained by WIRED showed that the compound will be self-sufficient as it will include its own water tank that measures 55 feet in diameter and 18 feet tall and is powered by a pump system.
The ranch already produces its own food thanks to cattle and horses as well as a nursery, an organic ginger farm and a turmeric farm nearby.
Zuckerberg and his wife Priscilla Chan have bought up land on Kauai in three tranches — paying $17 million for 110 acres in December 2021; buying 600 acres for $53 million in April 2021; and acquiring 700 acres for more than $100 million in 2014.
In 2016, Allan Parachini, a local journalist, wrote a critical op-ed that took Zuckerberg to task for “erecting a rock wall in front of his 700-acre oceanfront property.”
He urged residents to “tell Zuckerberg that abusing his stewardship of public beaches as if we are just another batch of Facebook victims is unacceptable.”
Parachini told WIRED that after he wrote the op-ed, Zuckerberg’s communications aides told him that the Facebook founder would no longer cooperate with him on any future requests for interviews or comment.
The Post has sought comment from Meta.
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