In his 2022 book ‘Survival of the Richest’ the theorist Douglas Rushkoff tells a story of being invited to talk to a group of “ultra-wealthy stakeholders”, who wanted his take on the potential future impact of technology.
But when he arrived at a top secret destination, it turned out that his audience was just five rich men – and they didn’t want to hear the talk he’d prepared. Instead, they peppered him with numerous questions about different technologies and situations, which quickly started to hone in on their core concern – which was how best to prepare for a doomsday scenario.
They wanted to know if it was better to get to New Zealand or Alaska, for example, whether he thought the risk of climate change was greater than the risk of biological warfare, and should a shelter have its own air supply, for example.
And all of these very wealthy people were very worried about what they called “the event” – which was an unnamed future disaster that would upend society. And they wanted to figure out how best to protect themselves, their families, and – of course – their assets and power.
Rushkoff doesn’t tell us who these rich men were – but we do know that this kind of high-end doomsday prepping is not confined to just a handful of the ultra-wealthy. Separate to his experience, we do have some very public examples of other billionaires trying to safeguard themselves in a worst case scenario.
That goes all the way from the Kardashians – with an episode of ‘Keeping up with the Kardashians’ featuring Kim and Khloé going bunker shopping – through to some of the richest people on the planet.
Like who?
Peter Thiel is perhaps the most interesting example – this is the multibillionaire early investor in PayPal. He’s worth around $17 billion today – he’s also a key backer of Donald Trump and JD Vance. But clearly he’s worried that they may not be able to make America great again, because he’s also developed a plan to escape to New Zealand in the event of a major disaster.
He was given citizenship of the country in 2011 – despite only spending 12 days there beforehand. The rules in the country normally require people to be resident for – essentially – four out of five consecutive years before they are eligible, but his application was fast-tracked. And that was despite him being up-front in saying that he had no immediate plan to live there – though he did promise to promote the country around the world, which the government of the day felt was very valuable.
He told Sam Altman – the man behind ChatGPT – about his plan to escape on his private jet to New Zealand if there was a major natural disaster or political breakdown. His original intention seems to have been to retreat to a massive, bunker-like complex that he was to build on the remote part of its South Island. According to the planning application, this was to cover around 18 acres of land and include accommodation for Thiel and guests, as well as other management and infrastructure buildings, all of which would be embedded in the hills. But the plan was rejected because of the negative impact it would have on the landscape.
And Mark Zuckerberg is getting ready too…
Yes, he’s been constructing a large complex in Hawaii on land that he’s been acquiring over the course of nearly a decade.
It’s a 1,400 acre compound of mansions – estimated to be costing $270m to build. And within that is a huge bunker. Now, Zuckerberg claims it’s just a bunker – not a doomsday bunker. He said it’s just a little shelter; essentially like a basement.
Although that skirts over the fact that it is set to be 5,000 sqft in size; not what most people would describe as little. It also seems to have blast-resistant doors, an escape hatch and its own energy and food supplies.
So it definitely seems to be built for more than housing a few old boxes and a pool table.
What about Elon Musk?
There’s no specific details out there about Musk’s bunkers – though you would presume he would have access to one. Most billionaires seem to, even if it’s just from a personal security rather than doomsday point of view.
But Musk’s future-proofing plan is far more ambitious – as he’s been talking for years about the need for humans to being a multiplanetary species so that it can escape whatever future disaster that’s coming.
As part of that his SpaceX has a plan that it says will lead to human’s establishing a colony on Mars. The first step in that process will see it send uncrewed ships to the planet next year to see if they can reliably land there. If that’s a success, they would look to send a crewed mission within four years of that landing, and that would start the process of building a base there.
But even if they do launch those ships next year, given the time it takes to get a ship from Earth to Mars, it’ll probably be 2027 by the time they know if it’s a success. Then if you add four years on, which itself may be ambitious, you’re talking about 2031 before a manned launch happens – and then the guts of a year before that crew lands on the planet.
And assuming all of that goes to plan – which is a big if – whether it will be possible to build a colony there, and how long that will take, is anyone’s guess.
So based on all of that, you’d presume Musk isn’t expecting doomsday to happen any time soon.
Is doomsday prepping big business as a result of all of this?
Absolutely – and it’s an interesting shift because, just a few years ago, doomsday preppers were quite a fringe group, and generally depicted as unhinged conspiracy theorists.
But now the so-called Doomsday Economy is thought to be worth billions of dollars a year.
Now some of that is very much at the entry level – for example, a study by FEMA in the US estimated that 20 million Americans classed themselves as preppers, in that they had made specific preparations for a disaster. But when you live in a country that regularly has hurricanes, wildfires, flooding, earthquakes and mass shootings then being prepared for a disaster isn’t necessarily a sign of you thinking the world is coming to an end – it’s just common sense.
And that kind of prepping might take the form of tinned and specially prepared food that has a long shelf life, back-up generators, survivalist classes and so on.
But of course there are many who are genuinely preparing for some kind of societal collapse – and they’re spending serious money on being ready for that.
For example a New York Times journalist last year visited a compound in West Virginia called Fortitude Ranch – it’s a 50 acre site which includes accommodation and bunkers, as well as food and drink supplies, and lots of weaponry to protect the inhabitants. And you can pay between $2,000 and $20,000 to join the ranch – and then a $1,000 per person fee so that, in the event of a disaster, you can retreat to the ranch to wait it out.
And they’re in expansion mode at the moment – they’re looking to franchise out the idea so that similar compounds are build in different parts of the country.
And as you move up the ladder then you can find some luxury bunkers in places in South Dakota – they cost $55,000 dollars to join up.
And then you can move all the way up to the billionaire class where, if you don’t want to buy up half of Hawaii or New Zealand, you can get companies like Swiss firm Oppidum to custom-make you a luxury bunker of your own, on your own property, wherever that may be.
Their fit outs start at around $10m and go up to $100m, apparently.
Do these ultra-wealthy people know something we don’t?
It would make you a bit nervous, wouldn’t it?
But perhaps what we’re seeing from them is an extreme version of the same thing that has happened to many people since the pandemic. Everyone is more aware of the potential for unexpected disruption to their lives and their food supplies and utilities. And since then we’ve had so many major global events that remind us of how fragile our supply chains often are.
But of course, unlike most of us, these ultra wealthy people have the money to do pretty much anything they want in order to protect themselves from that. And while spending $270m on a bunker in Hawaii is a lot of money – if you’re Mark Zuckerberg, it represents a fraction of your net worth. It’s not even comparable to the average person deciding to buy a small shed for their back garden.
And of course there is a practical element to these people spending big money on their, and their family’s, safety – because they obviously would be targets for kidnappers and criminals on a day-to-day basis, and so they need to think a lot about security outside of a world-ending disaster.
But the billionaire doomsday prepping also points to a wider fragility in the mega-rich mindset – because they have more money than they’ll ever need, they have huge amounts of power and influence – but despite that they are aware of how many things are outside of their control. And they’re willing to throw huge amounts of money at things like this as some attempt at changing that.
It’s the same reason why some billionaires are so obsessed with trying to extend human’s lifespan – including running countless ‘bio-hacking’ experiments on themselves – like getting blood transfusions from young people. Others are looking into the idea of uploading their consciousness to computers at some point in the future, while even the concept of cryogenics continues to be popular amongst some.
Is there an air of futility to billionaires doomsday prepping?
Well you do wonder how much use these bunkers and compounds will be to them in the event of a major global catastrophe – firstly because, no matter how prepared you are, you don’t know what that disaster would be, and where or how it would impact.
You would also imagine that these huge complexes would immediately become targets in the event of a societal breakdown – with the many people who didn’t prepare looking for a way to get food and shelter.
And this was an interesting part of the interaction that Douglas Rushkoff had with those five ultra-wealthy men. He said they were aware of the need to have armed guards to protect their bunkers –one had already lined up a dozen ex-Navy Seals to make their way to his compound once he gave the cue.
But they also wondered how they could keep the guards on their side – given that, in the event of a societal collapse, their money and even their cryptocurrency assets would all be pretty much worthless.
In order to stop the hired muscle simply dispatching their billionaire boss that they’ve been hired to protect, one of the rich men suggested they could keep the food behind combination locks as a disincentive for a revolt. Another suggested making their guards wear shock collars so they could be better controlled.
Rushkoff, though, suggested to them that – rather than focusing on weapons and access to food – the best approach to ensure they stayed on your side was to make the relationship a partnership rather than a transaction.
He suggested the billionaires work with their staff and start treating them like friends now in order to build loyalty and solidarity, and that would form the basis for a long term relationship where everyone looked out for each other.
Though, he said, that suggestion was met with a collective eye-roll from the billionaires.
