While normal , middle - form Americans struggle tobuy starter homesor even justafford rent , American billionaires are meddlesome buying up huge tract of land all over the world . Case in full point : Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff , who is gauge to beworth over $ 10 billion , is say to be buying up huge glob Hawaii . Why ? Nobody knows and Benioff wo n’t say .
NPR was thefirst to reportthat the billionaire had of late bought “ at least 38 parcels of land ” using six anonymous “ limited liability companies , or LLCs , and one nonprofit . ” That land , much of which is located on the Big Island and embrace big portions of the metropolis of Waimea , amounts to almost 600 acres and is estimated to be worth almost $ 100 million .
Some of the land , about 223 Accho , was donate to an affordable housing non - lucre last class . However , the other land acquisition remain a mystery . The diarist behind the NPR story , Dara Kerr , was able to secure an audience with Benioff at one of his residence on the island . Benioff drop most of their schmoose speak about his eleemosynary efforts but dodging direct questions about what the land he ’d buy was for . Kerr writes :
Photo: Chris Ratcliffe/Bloomberg (Getty Images)
Benioff avoid the majority of my questions to babble about his philanthropy … How he has donate millions to the fire department — his beachside home has nearly fire down . How his school of thought is to give categorically without expecting anything in return key . How he has donated around $ 100 million in Hawaii and has been able to stay on anonymous until now .
… When I ask Benioff about the property in the anonymous LLCs , things seem to take a act . He pop out speaking more quickly and fidget with a piece of newspaper in his helping hand . He ’s reluctant to go through the holdings , and his consultant on the Zoom call jumps in to say we can discuss afterward .
Kerr also take note that Benioff knew a creepy-crawly amount about her — include the region she was persist in when she visited for the consultation , as well as “ personal details ” about her and her family . Kerr says she left the interview flavor “ disconcert ” and unclear about the role of Benioff ’s farming procurements . by and by , after the interview , Kerr and a photographer were face by one of Benioff ’s employee while attempting to take picture of some of the properties pertaining to the story . Benioff then texted Kerr to assure her that his employee had entrance her “ snooping , ” and the billionaire proceeded to contact Kerr ’s boss about the incident . Kerr publish :
The undermentioned day , I drive around with a photographer to take pictures of the town and Benioff ’s projects . We go to the property he described as a residential district center and are confronted by one of his employees . The lensman explains we ’re there to take photograph of the exterior of the building . before long afterward , I get a text from Benioff . His employee seemed to think we were “ sleuth , ” and he read he ’s escalating the incident to NPR CEO John Lansing . Lansing substantiate he spoke with Benioff , without going into detail — the NPR newsroom operate severally , and the chief executive officer is not involved in editorial determination - making . Benioff did n’t react to my doubtfulness about the design of this call .
Benioff is n’t the only affluent American participating in obscene land grab . Buying land for dumb reason is very in vogue with the rich these days . No better good example of this exists than California eternally , thequixotic real estate projection backed by Silicon Valley billionairesthat have hoovered up 100 of acres of Bay Area Din Land for the intention of turning it into a new city .
A gaggle of other nabobs have standardised ambition . There ’s Dryden Brown , a wealthy 27 - year - erstwhile who claim hewants to make a new “ crypto city ” with other mass ’s money . There ’s Marc Lore , a former Walmart executive and the co - founder of Diapers.com , who says he want tobuild a “ sustainable ” city in Appalachia . And there ’s Kanye West , who wants to build a novel metropolis in the Middle East ; the doorknocker says his metropoliswill becalled DROAM and will traverse at least 100,000 acres .
While it ’s tantalising to figure what variety ofFyre - fest - on - steroidsDROAM might be , I exhibit an alternate plan of action : Have the federal governmenttax the wealthiest Americans at 90 percentand habituate the payoff to subsidize affordable housing . I think that ’d be a whole lot more efficacious than waitress for the world ’s richest idiots to figure out how urban provision study .
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