Tech billionaires seem to be doom prepping. Should we all be worried?

3 hours ago Share Save Zoe Kleinman Technology editor Share Save

BBC

Mark Zuckerberg is said to have started work on Koolau Ranch, his sprawling 1,400-acre compound on the Hawaiian island of Kauai, as far back as 2014. It is set to include a shelter, complete with its own energy and food supplies, though the carpenters and electricians working on the site were banned from talking about it by non-disclosure agreements, according to a report by Wired magazine. A six-foot wall blocked the project from view of a nearby road. Asked last year if he was creating a doomsday bunker, the Facebook founder gave a flat "no". The underground space spanning some 5,000 square feet is, he explained, is "just like a little shelter, it's like a basement". That hasn't stopped the speculation - likewise about his decision to buy 11 properties in the Crescent Park neighbourhood of Palo Alto in California, apparently adding a 7,000 square feet underground space beneath. Though his building permits refer to basements, according to the New York Times, some of his neighbours call it a bunker. Or a billionaire's bat cave.

Bloomberg via Getty Images Zuckerberg spent a reported $110m on adding nearly a dozen properties in a neighbourhood in Palo Alto to his portfolio

Then there is the speculation around other Silicon Valley billionaires, some of whom appear to have been busy buying up chunks of land with underground spaces, ripe for conversion into multi-million pound luxury bunkers. Reid Hoffman, the co-founder of LinkedIn, has talked about "apocalypse insurance". This is something about half of the super-wealthy have, he has previously claimed, with New Zealand a popular