You can’t ask anyone who is involved in the construction of Mark Zuckerberg’s Koolau Ranch on Kauai’s Hawaiian island anything because they’re bound by strict confidentiality agreements.
According to an anonymous former contract employee who was willing to risk life and limb — not really (?!?) — to talk to Wired, “It’s fight club. We don’t talk about fight club.” More ominously he added, “Anything posted from here, they get wind of it right away.”
You thought Zuckerberg was just using algorithms to scan your Instagram feed.
There are different sources on the size and cost of Zuckerberg’s compound. Wired reported that it covered 1,400 acres in its exposé last week. However, The Guardian reported that two years earlier Zuckerberg spent $17m to add 110 acres to his 1,500-acre property. Even before that, “Zuckerberg enraged neighbors” when he built “a 6ft-high stone wall around his land which blocked easy access Pila’a Beach.”
The wall was intended to reduce the road noise that would have invaded Zuck’s Zen-like space, but it is also a metaphor for the quiet surrounding the construction site. According to Wired, in addition to the Beyond the Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous house, a 5,000-square-foot underground lair is also under construction. It will have its own “energy and food supply” and cost more than $270 million when combined with the land purchase price. Real estate alone accounts for over two-thirds, or $170 million.
Kali Yuga Buddha, a Hawaiin Twitter/X User who has been following the project for years and has even posted what appear to be drone pictures of its construction.
🚨Exclusive: Images unveil a secretive panic room in Zuckerberg’s Kauai compound. With not many friends in Hawaii and growing isolation from the community, it seems the billionaire is fortifying his fortress. pic.twitter.com/MXeVNODTm1
— Kali Yuga Buddha (@KaliEpoch) September 9, 2023
Kali says Zuck’s compound leaves a “mark that is hard to reconcile to nature’s blueprint”. A bridge crosses a once-untouched river. “Clear-cut forests give a very different impression of protection.” His feed is fascinating, and includes tidbits on a smaller “bunker” that Oprah Winfrey is building in nearby Maui.
Housing.com claims in a report that the new underground facility of Dr. No includes “a mechanical room secured by a blast-resistant concrete door and steel.”
You can get more from housing:
Koolau Ranch, despite its lavish facade, is designed as a self-sufficient space that can withstand any global disaster. The compound will have a minimum of 30 bedrooms, 30 bathrooms, and guest houses. It also includes a cluster of 11 treehouses connected by rope bridges. The compound is full of security features, including keypad locks, soundproofing, and hidden doors. An extensive camera network provides surveillance.
This is the perfect place to survive the apocalypse, whether it’s nuclear, biological, or zombies, angry villagers, etc. It’s enough to make one wonder if the man is right to be worried about all four.
We are both pretty proud of our long-term pantry and the other survival items we have been stockpiling since before the COVID lockdown disruptions in 2020. Zuck is a far better investor than we are. It’s not the same as what we can do with a quarter of a billion dollars.
I would like to believe that we could accomplish this without pissing half of the island’s residents off and swearing to secrecy the other half.
