What are the super-wealthy so worried about? Why are they selling so much stock, buying land, and building bunkers? Maybe they think the sky is about to fall. Or maybe they’re afraid of something worse: the economy will crash, a terrible apocalypse is imminent, or the world’s craziness will go completely out of control.
It’s not unusual for large shareholders to sell shares sometimes. Maybe they just want to pay off their mortgages, pay tax bills, or decide to take profits off the table. But the selling we’re seeing now are huge blocks of stock, not a modest number of shares. And it’s not just one or two insiders who are unloading, but numerous senior executives, and they include some of the richest and most powerful people on The Street.
Take Mark Zuckerberg as an example, the CEO of Meta (formerly Facebook) and one of the world’s wealthiest. The New York Post recently reported that he is building a huge compound in Hawaii, which will include a massive underground bunker.
Zuckerberg sold nearly a half-billion dollars of his Meta stock in the last two months alone. The Post noted that he sold shares in every trading session in November and December. It is possible, of course, that he simply wanted to take profits without tanking the stock. After all, in October 2022, Meta’s shares were just $93, but now they are $370, approximately four times as much.
Questions Galore
Still, one wonders why he decided to sells so many shares - and why now. One also wonders whether his selling and building a bunker are two separate issues or if they are connected in some way.
Let’s look at some other billionaires. One of them is Warren Buffett, head of Berkshire Hathaway and also one of the world’s richest people. The Oracle of Omaha unloaded $8 billion in his company’s stock. Then there is Ray Dalio, a billionaire who founded Bridgewater Associates and built it into the largest hedge fund in the world. Wanna guess what Dalio is doing?
But there’s more – a lot more. According to CNBC, Jamie Dimon, head of JP Morgan, the most powerful bank in the world, is selling one million of his shares. In the 20 years Dimon has been holding the reins, this is the first time he has sold any of his shares. By the way, senior executives at other banks also are selling.
About two months ago Jeff Bezos, the super billionaire who started and helped build Amazon into an online retail powerhouse, sold $240 million of his shares, and said going forward he might be selling as much as an additional $1 billion.
By the middle of 2023, insiders had dumped more than $9 billion of their stock, which can best be described as voting with their portfolios – and since then the selling has not only continued but has apparently increased. That so many billionaires are selling so much of their stock at the same time is certainly raising eyebrows.
This story has been picked up by a variety of websites which have elaborated on it. According to them, at least 15 billionaires are building huge underground bunkers – described as mansions – and stocking up with enough air and food to last a lifetime. Zuckerberg’s bunker in Hawaii is said to have 5,000 sq. ft., cost $270 million, be capable of producing its own food and will be surrounded by massive swaths of land.
The Newest Enemy
Super modern, reinforced bunkers can help in the event of most calamities including a nuclear war, climate change disaster, or other horror, but even they have their limitations. And one of those is AI.
According to Business Insider, Sam Altman, CEO of Open AI and one of the leading personalities in the industry, said that even bunkers won’t help if there’s an AI apocalypse. Nevertheless, when asked by The Wall Street Journal whether he had a bunker, he acknowledged having “structures.”
Apparently, Bezos agrees with the idea that “twice is better.” Bezos, who has a $68 million property in Florida in a very exclusive area, recently purchased another for $78 million. By the way, his neighbors include Ivanka Trump and Tom Brady.
Like many other multi-billionaires, Ray Dalio also purchased a bunker, but not because he’s worried about a nuclear war, climate disaster, or other strange event; Dalio is worried about a civil war breaking out in America, a fear that other super rich have as well. “When winning becomes the only thing that matters, unethical fighting becomes progressively more forceful in self-reinforcing ways,” he told Fortune.
CNBC reports another curious development: CEOs have quit in record numbers during 2023. In fact, Challenger, Gray, and Christmas, a placement firm for executives, notes that more than 1,500 CEOs have left their positions for greener pastures, the highest number since the firm began tracking this.
According to the “This is John Williams Market Commentator” website, “The wealthiest, most powerful executives are liquidating stock, stepping down and buying large estates and bunkers. Apparently, they are preparing for something big… What people should be doing is not read the headlines, but read between the lines. What are the odds that so many billionaires would do the same exact thing at the same exact time, all planning for a terrible catastrophe.
“Everything has become (unaffordably) expensive. The direction this country is heading towards is down and the situation looks like it may get a lot worse. People need to prepare for this.”
Bottom line: Don’t think it’s only the very wealthy who are worried about what’s going on in the world and in America in particular. The rest of us are pretty worried too. But how many of us are ready to start building our bunkers?
In 1854, philosopher Henry David Thoreau wrote that “most men lead lives of quiet desperation.” To the extent that’s true, they’ll figure out a way to endure the desperation. But it’s the quiet most of us are focusing on now.
Sources: businessinsider.com; cnbc.com; fortune.com; nypost.com; wsj.com
Gerald Harris is a financial and feature writer. Gerald can be reached at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
