Mark Zuckerberg Is Building a Secret Luxury Bunker

Chatter along Kauai's "coconut wireless" rumor mill, an allusion to Facebook, has had its share of intrigue over the mysterious private compound being built there by Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg. Some say it will contain an underground city, while others tag it as a post-apocalyptic bunker. Wired reporter Guthrie Scrimgeour's investigation into the top-secret build on Hawaii's oldest and smallest island pins these conjectures as conservative—for once, the rumors don't go far enough. Though a wall of NDAs and a literal six-foot boundary makes peeking into the $270 million compound on 1,400 acres nearly impossible, Scrimgeour spoke with anonymous former contractors and dug into public records to learn what's going on inside the private vacation home, dubbed Koolau Ranch.

To start, the plans include over a dozen structures, which include two mansions, disk-shaped treehouses connected by rope ladders, and a building that will house a gym, pools, sauna, and tennis court. In all, there will be at least 30 bedrooms and bathrooms each. The home is also self-sustaining, with an 18-foot tall water tank and food grown on the grounds. Intense security and safety measures, like an underground bunker, blast-proof doors, and an arsenal of security cams, are also in the plans. And while ogling the excesses of the ultra-rich is a favorite American pastime, the real story of Koolau Ranch lies in both Hawaiian land use, which has a measure of protections for Native Hawaiians, and the quest for privacy and isolation by tech-billionaires, who often profit on the sale of other people's personal data (Zuckerberg included). Read the full story here. (And check out more Longform recaps).