Billionaires, despite their will to be original, tend to flock to the same places. On the one hand, many of them like to spend time in cities such as New York, London or Dubai. On the other hand, the wealthiest people in the world like to build fully self-sustaining properties, including underground bunkers on remote islands. But why?
In 2021, researchers from Anglia Ruskin University’s Global Sustainability Institute in England published a study in the journal Sustainability. Using a combination of three indicators (carrying capacity, isolation and self-sufficiency) they put together a list of countries where you’re most likely to survive the end of the world. New Zealand, Iceland, the United Kingdom, Australia and Ireland came out at the top of that ranking.
Some of those destinations are now proving to be very popular among billionaires who buy or build an exuberant property and sometimes choose to add underground bunkers to complete their real estate.
In an interview with The New Yorker, PayPal co-founder Reid Hoffman (himself a billionaire) explained how many of the world’s wealthiest people are flocking to New Zealand in order to have a place to lay low in case of a world-changing event. “Saying you’re ‘buying a house in New Zealand’ is kind of a ‘wink, wink, say no more’”, Hoffman said, claiming that around half of his fellow Silicon Valley billionaires have acquired some form of “apocalypse insurance” in the form of far-off properties complete with bunkers.
Mark Zuckerberg, for example, is working on his self-sufficient mega Ko’olau Ranch property on the Hawaiian island Kauai. With a 400 million dollar budget, it includes everything from a house to farms and breweries. One quarter of the budget is only for an extensive underground bunker. Bill Gates and Richard Branson are just some of the other celebrities who (are rumoured to) have bunkers.
The exact reason for this inspires quite a bit of rumours among conspiracy theorists, including the fact that billionaires would be aware of some big end-of-the-world event happening in 2024. However, chances are the wealthiest people in the world are just doing what they do simply because they can. Why not prepare for the worst if you have the funds to do so, after all? Apocalypse aside, preparing for climate change or the outbreak of another world war doesn’t seem so strange given the circumstances.
