Colonies of the Ultra-Elite: Compared

From Larry Ellison’s utopian tech-lab on Lāna‘i to Epstein’s secretive island of infamy, private islands have become the billionaire class’s ultimate blank slate — where sustainability experiments, PR promises, and moral vacuums all find their place.

🏝️ Island ownership varies more by intent than net worth.

Some use islands as eco-labs (Ellison, Cannon-Brookes), others as ultra-luxury resorts (Mateschitz, Branson), and a few as low-key retreats (Larry Page).

🌐 Island location choices reflect power structures.

Most billionaire-owned islands cluster in jurisdictions that allow private freehold ownership — like the U.S. Virgin Islands, Australia, and the Bahamas — rarely in places with tight national controls.

🧾 The cost of island ownership isn’t just real estate — it’s infrastructure.

Buying the land is often cheaper than building sustainable water, power, transport, and telecom systems. This explains why some billionaires invest far beyond the purchase price (e.g., Ellison’s Lānaʻi investments exceed $500M).

📊 On the Data & Caveats:

• Size data comes from satellite, land registry, and owner disclosures, but acreage is often rounded or inconsistently reported across sources.
• Ownership structure matters: some billionaires own islands personally; others via trusts or shell companies, making verification harder.
• Value ≠ visibility: Some large holdings (like Bell Island) are rarely publicized due to their private nature and discrete ownership.
• Net worth thresholds are based on current or recent billionaire status (Forbes, Bloomberg). This excluded prior owners like Epstein or aristocratic families.

6 Related Facts:

🌳 Mark Zuckerberg owns over 1,500 acres of land on Kaua‘i, Hawai‘i — including a former sugarcane plantation and a controversial private compound — but unlike Ellison’s Lāna‘i, it’s not classified as a private island, since it's part of the main island and shares public infrastructure.

🌋 Larry Ellison has floated turning Lānaʻi into a carbon-neutral model city powered by solar and desalination, with local farming and tech-driven governance.

🚁 Richard Branson commutes between his two islands (Necker & Moskito) via private helicopter and employs lemur conservation as part of the island’s ecosystem rehab.

🗿 David Copperfield’s Musha Cay includes a pirate treasure hunt experience, curated by Copperfield himself, that reportedly took years to develop.

📡 Google co-founder Larry Page uses his island holdings to host ultra-private summits with scientists, technologists, and conservationists.

💸 Most islands on the list were not bought at peak real estate prices — in fact, many were acquired well below $20 million and transformed with far greater post-purchase investment.