(HorizonPost.com) – Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg revealed this week that he has been raising a herd of cattle on his vast $100 million Hawaiian estate, Fortune reported.
In a post on Instagram, the tech billionaire revealed that his goal was to create the “highest quality beef in the world.”
Zuckerberg is raising Angus and Wagyu cattle, two breeds known to feature the high marbling that makes beef more tender. Wagyu cattle are a Japanese breed, while Angus cattle hail from Scotland. The high-end cattle are being fed a diet of macadamia meal and beer, both of which are produced on Zuckerberg’s Ko’olau Ranch.
While some ranchers do feed cattle beer to boost their appetites, it is not a particularly common practice.
According to Zuckerberg, his ranch will need to raise “a lot of acres of macadamia trees” since his cattle consume 5,000 to 10,000 pounds of the macadamia meal annually.
The Ko’olau Ranch is located on the northernmost Hawaiian island of Kauai, known as the “Garden Isle” due to the tropical rainforest that blankets most of the island’s surface.
According to a 2023 report from Wired, Zuckerberg now owns 1,400 acres of Kauai, which, combined with the construction costs for his ranch and estate, is reported to be worth about $270 million.
Zuckerberg has been very secretive about his Hawaiian land, which he began purchasing in 2014, causing blowback from the local community.
In 2016, Zuckerberg came under fire after going to court to pressure native Hawaiians into selling their ancestral land. The billionaire later apologized in an op-ed published in 2017 in the local paper, promising to drop the lawsuits.
According to Wired, Zuckerberg has also been constructing an underground bunker at the Ko’olau Ranch. The compound is also designed to be entirely self-sufficient, with its own 18-foot-tall water tank, 55 feet in diameter, and pumping system.
Zuckerberg isn’t the only billionaire to spend millions to live on Kauai.
Billionaire Frank VanderSloot recently spent more than $50 million on ranchland on the island.
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