Zuckerberg's Hawaii Bunker: 465 m² for the End Times

Zuckerberg builds 465 m² bunker on Hawaii island

A 465-square-meter underground shelter, complete with an armored door and reinforced concrete and metal structures. On paper, it is the perfect bunker. The uncomfortable detail is its location: Hawaii, a volcanic island in the middle of the Pacific, prone to tsunamis and situated on the hottest flank of the geopolitical board. Meta’s owner has more than enough money to buy almost any plot on the planet. He chose this one.

Zuckerberg’s Hawaii bunker is not an isolated hole. Data published by various media outlets describe several surface mansions connected to the refuge by tunnels, all kinds of enclosures, and a walled, closed environment. The complex is designed to be self-sufficient, with its own water tanks, large areas for cultivation, and land for livestock. And with secret doors, some designed to blend into the walls.

What’s inside: from armored doors to flying saucer houses

The design mixes functionality and playfulness without shame. Alongside security and privacy measures, luxuries have been described that have little to do with surviving an apocalypse: spas, gyms, multiple pools, saunas, a tennis court, and relaxation areas. Surviving, but with a bathrobe.

The most striking detail is the 11 treehouses shaped like flying saucers, connected to each other by rope bridges. They coexist with concrete reinforcements and blast-resistant doors. Those with unlimited budgets can afford both things, even if they don’t quite fit together.

Why is Hawaii a bad idea for a refuge?

Because it accumulates three risks that a prepper avoids instinctively. It is geologically unstable, with volcanoes. It is exposed to tsunamis, and some descriptions of the complex place it right on the beach. And it lies in the Asia-Pacific area, the zone most exposed to conflict between powers.

The circulating reasoning is simple: Hawaii is US territory, so in case of war it would not receive as many missiles as Washington, Los Angeles, or New York, but some would fall. That alone would be enough to turn the refuge into an expensive sarcophagus. The alternative suggested, half-jokingly, is to move it to Calasparra. Against that argument, one could claim that whoever handles this information might know something the rest ignore. Or simply that he has excess money and whims.

The trend: he’s not the only billionaire preparing

Zuckerberg is not alone. It is noted that several billionaires are building similar refuges for whatever may come, and some admit they would do the same if they had those resources. The comparison made is with other wealthy trends: during the pandemic, celebrity bunkers made headlines just as they do now.

The cynical reading is the most repeated: with plenty of money, any eccentricity is possible. The less cynical reading understands that whoever builds a refuge of this type antiestéticars a humanitarian disaster on a global scale. Between millionaire eccentricity and informed paranoia lies a gap that no one fully crosses.

From the bunker to the North Korea map

The conversation then took a detour that, apparently, has nothing to do with it. And it doesn’t. But it serves to measure the underlying mood: the feeling that the international order is unraveling. According to excerpts reproduced by one of the participants in the thread, North Korean television began using the DPRK map instead of the unified Korea map, which was the usual gesture. Translated: not only US bases, but all of South Korea, become targets. Brotherhood, officially, is over.

Kim Jong Un formulated this, according to the same source, before members of the Supreme People’s Assembly and its Presidium on the 15th, in a lengthy speech. The model handled previously was a confederal system: one country with two political-economic systems, cooperating without enmities, something the North and South had agreed upon three times. That scenario is compared to Vietnam’s reunification in 1975. Positions on who pushes whom—whether the North due to its model, or the US due to its influence in the region—are far from settled.

A public refuge ceases to be a refuge

Here lies the contradiction running through the entire discussion. A refuge works precisely while no one knows where it is. Publishing it everywhere turns it into a known target. A bunker with an armored door, pool, and sauna is also a point on the map that many people can locate.

That is the most repeated point: having it and announcing it are almost incompatible. Whoever prepares for the end of the world does not usually invite the press to photograph the entrance. At least, not if they truly believe the end of the world is coming.

With such a combination of money, luxury, and adverse geology, the doubt is not whether the bunker would withstand an apocalypse. The doubt is what its owner believes he needs it for.