As you are likely aware, Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg is a weird guy. He owns an alarming number of identical gray hoodies, he once tried to disguise himself with a sunscreen mask, and he may want us all to live in a leg-free digital world. But did you know that he’s also building a compound with a vast underground bunker on the Hawaiian island of Kauai? I’m guessing no, because the project is so secretive that one of the people working on it told a reporter unironically, “It’s fight club. We don’t talk about fight club.”
But now the secrets of Zuck’s dystopian, megasize man cave have been revealed in a Wired piece, based on interviews with locals, people involved in the project, public documents, and court records. Here are some bizarre and fairly horrifying revelations to file away for your next debate about whether billionaires should exist.
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The compound is ridiculously enormous and expensive.
Wired reports that Zuckerberg and his wife, Priscilla Chan, have been buying up land on Kauai, the smallest of the four main Hawaiian islands, since 2014 to build a property known as Koolau Ranch. Now, construction is underway on an elaborate, roughly 1,400-acre compound that will likely cost more than $270 million including construction and land costs, making it one of the most expensive properties in the world.
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Zuckerberg tried to keep it secret — and he almost got away with it.
Though Meta often does not seem that passionate about protecting its users’ data, Zuckerberg has been known to go to great lengths to protect his own personal privacy — and the Koolau Ranch is no exception. The compound is surrounded by a six-foot wall. Security guards monitor the gate and patrol nearby beaches on ATVs. And with hundreds of locals working on the project, Wired reports that a “not-insignificant share of the island,” which has a population of 73,000, is bound by a strictly enforced nondisclosure agreement:
Nobody working on this project is allowed to talk about what they’re building. Almost anyone who passes compound security — from carpenters to electricians to painters to security guards — is bound by a strict nondisclosure agreement, according to several workers involved in the project. And, they say, these agreements aren’t a formality. Multiple workers claim they saw or heard about colleagues removed from the project for posting about it on social media. Different construction crews within the site are assigned to separate projects and workers are forbidden from speaking with other crews about their work, sources say.
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The mansions — plural — are as big as a football field.
So, what exactly is Zuck building? The compound centers around two almost unfathomably large mansions:
According to plans viewed by Wired and a source familiar with the development, the partially completed compound consists of more than a dozen buildings with at least 30 bedrooms and 30 bathrooms in total. It is centered around two mansions with a total floor area comparable to a professional football field (57,000 square feet), which contain multiple elevators, offices, conference rooms, and an industrial-size kitchen.
Brandi Hoffine Barr, spokesperson for Zuckerberg and Chan, told Wired that they “value the time their family spends at Koolau Ranch and in the local community and are committed to preserving the ranch’s natural beauty.” But the size of the project, and the fact that Zuckerberg has already hosted corporate events there, suggests it’s going to be far more than a family beach house.
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There’s also a luxury Ewok village.
The compound comes equipped with everything billionaires need to survive in the wilderness, like a “full-size gym, pools, sauna, hot tub, cold plunge, and tennis court,” according to Wired. And naturally, the ultranerdy Meta CEO had to include a feature that’s straight out of Return of the Jedi:
In a nearby wooded area, a web of 11 disk-shaped treehouses are planned, which will be connected by intricate rope bridges, allowing visitors to cross from one building to the next while staying among the treetops.
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And an elaborate underground lair.
Thanks to the treehouses, Zuck should be prepared if his enemies send an AT-ST Walker after him. But what if he encounters some other sci-fi movie disaster? Well, he has a plan for that too — and for some reason it involves hidden doors and soundproofed chambers:
The plans show that the two central mansions will be joined by a tunnel that branches off into a 5,000-square-foot underground shelter, featuring living space, a mechanical room, and an escape hatch that can be accessed via a ladder. “There’s cameras everywhere,” David says — and the documents back this up. More than 20 cameras are included on plans for one smaller ranch operations building alone. Many of the compound’s doors are planned to be keypad-operated or soundproofed. Others, like those in the library, are described as “blind doors,” made to imitate the design of the surrounding walls. The door in the underground shelter will be constructed out of metal and filled in with concrete — a style common in bunkers and bomb shelters.
According to sources and planning documents reviewed by Wired, the compound will be self-sufficient, with its own water tank, 55 feet in diameter and 18 feet tall — along with a pump system. A variety of food is already produced across its 1,400 acres through ranching and agriculture.
Some — like the 1 million people who signed a petition to “Stop Mark Zuckerberg From Colonizing Kauai” — aren’t thrilled about the billionaire disrupting the island’s community and environment for his mysterious personal project. And sure, it sounds weird as hell. But perhaps they’re failing to consider the upside of Zuckerberg and a few dozen Meta executives leaving our world to start a new life underground.
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