Mark Zuckerberg, billionaire and CEO of Meta, announced on an Instagram post he was producing “high-quality beef” at his Ko’olau ranch in Kauai, Hawaii.
In the post, Zuckerberg explains he is raising both Waygu and Angus cattle on a strict diet of beer and macadamia nuts. According to his post, each cow consumes between 5,000 and 10,000 pounds of food every year, which requires acres of macadamia trees.
“My daughters help plant the mac trees and take care of our different animals,” he writes in his post.
“We’re still early in the journey, and it’s fun improving on it every season,” he continues. “Of all my projects, this is the most delicious,” he writes under a photo of him dining on some of the expensive beef.
Zuckerberg faces backlash
Since his post, the billionaire has been under fire due to unethical practices that are bound to do immense damage to our climate.
The UN estimates that emissions from livestock makeup over 14% of greenhouse gasses. This is mainly due to the fact cows produce large amounts of methane, a greenhouse gas that is 80 times more potent than carbon dioxide. Alongside a diet of macadamia nuts, which use a hefty amount of water to produce, Zuckerberg’s farming practices have stirred up controversy.
One ecologist, Nicholas Carter, shared on X, “Zuckerberg could ship a kilo of macadamia nuts 200 times around the world before its GHGs matched those of a kilo of his local beef”.
Zuckerberg has previously received backlash over his compound in Hawaii. This is primarily due to his impact on the surrounding community. Zuckerberg even pressed to have those indigenous to the land sell their property and pursued lawsuits before dropping them in 2017.
Still, it seems the damage is already done, and the CEO is under more scrutiny now that his unethical practices have been exposed. Carter also wrote in his tweet, “This obnoxious luxury puts pressure on planetary health, Indigenous communities, rainforests & wild animals.”
About the compound
Zuckerberg first began obtaining land back in 2014 and, since then, has come to own 1,400 acres of land. That is, land he owns above ground. Though he was previously very secretive about his land in Kauai, an article on Wired brought to light Mark’s newest project on the land: an underground bunker.
The bunker, which will span roughly 5,000 acres underground, is estimated to cost nearly 270 million dollars and will be stocked with food and energy sources.
Among his many acres of land is where he has started his newfound farm and where he will continue to grow what he claims is “high-quality beef.”
