- Wealthy invest billions in bunkers
- Global elites seek refuge
- Rising concerns about catastrophes
‘Doomsday preparing’ was formerly considered a pastime reserved for the paranoid fringe; however, between April 2022 and April 2023, average Americans spent an astounding $11 billion on survival supplies.
Surveys indicate that approximately one-third of American citizens confess to preparing, but few have the means that billionaire bunker-builders of today devote to their shelters.
The world’s wealthiest have Increasingly spent hundreds of millions of dollars on securing underground compounds, private islands, and (survival residences) for the merely rich.
It came to light late last year that Mark Zuckerberg was concealing a $100 million fortress beneath his Hawaiian island estate, with blast-resistant doors and its own energy and food supplies.
Idaho’s wealthiest man, the billionaire wellness entrepreneur Frank VanderSloot, recently paid $51 million for a 2,000-acre ranch south of Zuck’s compound.
If the world ends, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman once disclosed that he and PayPal co-founder Peter Thiel have an “arrangement”: Altman stated in 2016 that the couple would retreat to one of Thiel’s properties in New Zealand should circumstances deteriorate.
However, where precisely do they intend to reside? In 2022, a local community council on the South Island of New Zealand thwarted Thiel’s attempt to carve his regal fortified refuge into the land adjacent to historically protected Lake Wanaka.
Thiel’s Fortress Plan Criticized
As reported by independent commissioners who visited the proposed site on the council’s behalf, Thiel’s shelter design would “significantly diminish the natural beauty and aesthetic appeal of the exceptional natural landscape.”
“At the frequency with which substantial portions of the proposal would be in plain and direct view, all members were astounded,” they wrote of Thiel’s proposal, which would have been situated near Mount Alpha, an equally historic structure in New Zealand.
Due to the escalating regional conflicts and the increasing temperatures caused by climate change, the apprehension that Silicon Valley elites are searching for a natural fortress for the catastrophe has been bolstered by New Zealand’s picturesque landscapes and remote island location.
The nonprofit coalition of physicists and other researchers that publishes the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists set its Doomsday Clock to midnight 90 seconds ago; in its 76-year history, this was the nearest humanity has come to doom.
“Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has eroded norms of international conduct and raised profound questions about how states interact,” they explained in a 2023 Doomsday Clock statement.
Worse yet, Russia’s veiled threats to employ nuclear weapons serve as a stark reminder to the international community that any accidental, deliberate, or erroneous escalation of the conflict represents an enormous danger.
The escalation of these concerns has been mirrored by Israel’s bombardment campaigns over Gaza, which, purportedly in retaliation against Hamas, have the potential to spark a regional conflict.
Anxiety regarding the recurrence of another pandemic similar to Covid-19 has not affected the apprehension of societal collapse.
Adults of Generation Z, defined as those born after 1997, are the most likely to be preparing for a catastrophe. According to a Finder survey, an astounding forty per cent claimed to have spent money on apocalypse supplies in 2022.
Prepping Survey and Climate Concerns
The margin of error for the survey of 2,179 adults in the United States was two per cent. Finder, which has been gathering data on emergency preparedness since 2017, inquired whether individuals had expended funds on emergency preparations within the previous twelve months.
Content creator and sustainable prepping influencer Brekke Wagoner stated, “Our climate will become more severe as a result of global climate change; if for no other reason, you should have an emergency plan to deal with these natural disasters, because they’re coming regardless of our desires.”
For instance, in September of last year, New York City experienced its wettest day ever recorded due to inundation. It caused flight cancellations, tube closures and vehicle submersion throughout the city.
Furthermore, the wildfires that ravaged Hawaii in August of last year were the deadliest in United States history, claiming 96 lives and displacing thousands.
The wealthiest individuals in the world almost certainly possess as much information as Generation Z does regarding the escalating number of global catastrophes, if not more.
Reid Hoffman, one of Thiel’s PayPal co-founders, told The New Yorker that New Zealand is clandestinely regarded as the place to seek refuge in the event of a catastrophe among the world’s wealthiest.
Hoffman stated, “Saying you’re “buying a residence in New Zealand” is akin to saying, “Wink, wink, say no more.”
Rod Drury, the CEO of Xero, a New Zealand accounting software company sponsored by Thiel, stated that American billionaires “view New Zealand as a bolt-hole.”
Ultra-Wealthy’s Hidden Retreats
In the same year as Thiel, Larry Page, co-founder of Google and a billionaire, obtained residency in New Zealand. Entrepreneur Mihai Dinulescu and his spouse infamously fled to New Zealand in 2020 following the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic, abandoning a cryptocurrency venture.
Preliminary reports indicate the existence of shelters in Wanaka, Hanmer Springs, and Hamilton.
However, there are also more domestic options: south of Miami, in a village overlooking Biscayne Bay, there is a renowned assemblage of business magnates and personalities.
Jeff Bezos, a billionaire from Amazon, and Lauren Sanchez, his fiancee, will soon be residing in this affluent enclave, which retired NFL star Tom Brady, former First Daughter Ivanka Trump, and singer Julio Iglesias will surround.
This year, the world’s third wealthiest man spent nearly $150 million purchasing two adjacent properties on Indian Creek.
Among the select group of exceptional individuals recognised to have initiated preparations for the end of times, many remain unidentified, presumably on purpose.
Five “super-wealthy guys” recently questioned technology writer Douglas Rushkoff in a secret meeting amid an American desert regarding how they could better prepare their doomsday bunkers. The questions posed were, “How do I maintain authority over my security force after the event?”
Elite Bunker Solutions and Islands
Numerous firms, such as Survival Condo, which converts abandoned US missile silos into underground high-rises for survivalists; Oppidum, headquartered in the Czech Republic, which provides ‘ultra-luxury’ bunkers for billionaires worldwide; and Rising S, which claims to have constructed fourteen bunkers in New Zealand, have emerged to satisfy this demand.
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An increasing number of Ultra-wealthy individuals have purchased entire islands or substantial portions of them in recent years.
Listicles prominently feature Richard Branson, Johnny Depp, and affluent families like DuPont and Disney and their privately owned islands.
Specific individuals are even amassing wealth to obtain citizenship in foreign nations. In essence, “golden visas” enable affluent individuals to obtain legal residency and citizenship in foreign countries in return for substantial financial investments.
