10 Billionaires as Wasteful or Fanciful as They are Wealthy
Introduction
 Wealth
and eccentricity don’t necessarily go hand-in-hand, but it’s always fascinating
when they do. While not all billionaires love to squander their fortune (in fact
quite the opposite is usually the case) the ones that do, tend to do so
extravagantly – investing, donating or just throwing away large sums of money on
elaborate pet projects. While some of their indulgences are noble but
far-fetched, plenty are just downright absurd, bordering on crazy. Sometimes
billionaires can be as wasteful or maybe just wildly fanciful as they are
wealthy.
10) Clive Palmer
Clive Palmer, one of Australia’s richest businessmen, might have made his money
through mining but he made his reputation as one of the quirkiest billionaires,
with a multitude of bizarre and random money-making and/or attention-seeking
schemes.
First there was a planned commercial Zeppelin that ultimately amounted to
nothing when he failed to find investors. Then there was his conspiracy theory
that everyone from the President of the United States of America to Greenpeace
were after him. Now, he’s got his so-called real-life Jurassic Park at his
resort in Coolum in Queensland, Australia, where Palmer has installed a number
of automatronic, life-size Dinosaurs, with plans to eventually have 165 such
replicas in and around the bush-land of the resort’s golf course.
In keeping with Palmer’s theme of investing in things that were monumentally
historic failures, Palmer is also in the process of building a replica of the
ill-fated Titanic, which will be imaginatively called, Titanic II.
Furthermore, following in the often perplexing footsteps of Donald Trump,
Palmer is running to be the Australian Prime Minister in late 2013, with the
ambition of obtaining even more influence and official power in Australia –
presumably so he can show Silvio Berlusconi how a real eccentric billionaire
squanders his country’s fortune and runs its political system into the ground.
9) Tamir Sapir
Georgian-born American businessman, Tamir Sapir lived the classic rags-to-riches
life. Like some sort of modern-day fairytale, he went from driving a cab after
first arriving in America, to selling fertilizer and oil in the 1980s, before
buying his own electronics store and investing the profits in New York real
estate, which ultimately led to him becoming a billionaire by 2002. Despite his
story-book of tremendous success as a businessman, Sapir’s hobbies are less
endearing to the common man.
 In
2009, his yacht was raided by U.S. Customs officials and illegal hides of
endangered lions, tigers and bears were found, along with other souvenirs of
exotic animals, such as stuffed heads, a variety of ivory carvings and a
snake-skinned box for cigars. Sapir hadn’t been smuggling the items. They were
for his own personal macabre enjoyment. The Customs officials confiscated the
items and held Sapir’s boat until the supposedly down-to-earth tycoon paid his
$150,000 fine.
8) Peter Thiel
German-born American entrepreneur Peter Thiel is probably best known for
co-founding PayPal. He was also the first outside investor in Facebook. What
he’s perhaps less known for is his investment in a number of ambitious endeavors
that, though often noble in theory, are at least a tad far-fetched. Such
investments relate to human affairs or governmental and/or technological
advancements. Often Thiel’s approaches are somewhat radical.
The Machine Intelligence Research Institute is one organization who have
benefited from Thiel’s generosity, as he shares their ambition to develop
artificial intelligence and explore and expose the inherent positives and
negatives of the technology.
 Thiel
also donated large portions of his wealth to the not-for-profit organization,
the Methuselah Foundation, who study and explore potential means to extending
life, specifically through biological science.
Of the various investment and donations Thiel has made over the years, his
most ambitious and noble but arguably far-fetched would have to be his
association with the Seasteading Institute. The organization’s mission is to
develop a variety of floating cities as a massive social experiment. By
establishing multiple self-governing cities, the organization aims to test
various forms of governance that may inspire national governments around the
world to do things differently.
Fittingly, Thiel has also created a fellowship to inspire young people to
give up on formal education and follow their dreams, not matter how ambitious or
far-fetched they may be. The fellowship involves $100,000 for 20 people under
20.
7) Meg Whitman
A successful American business executive, Meg Whitman felt that her achievements
within companies such as Hewlett-Packard, The Walt Disney Company, DreamWorks,
Procter & Gamble, Hasbro and eBay qualified her to be the Governor of
California. So, in 2010 she decided to run for the position, spending $144
million of her $1.3 billion fortune in the process – only to lose to Jerry
Brown.
In total Whitman actually spent about $178.5 million on her campaign when one
factors in donations on top of her money spent. On a historical note, Whitman
ended up spending more of her own personal wealth than any other self-funded
political candidate had ever spent on a single election in American political
history.
6) Elon Musk
The American entrepreneur, Elon Musk, has grand plans for his company SpaceX,
which he founded with $100 million of his own fortune. The company currently
specializes in the development and the production of space launch vehicles.
However, Musk’s ultimate ambition is multi-planetary colonization, which he
feels will serve to ensure the survival of the human race.
By Steve Jurvetson from Menlo Park, USA (Flickr: Heat Shield) [CC-BY-2.0],
via Wikimedia Commons
Musk is concerned about an asteroid smashing into the planet, or monstrous
volcanoes, or a bunch of other risks – many of which are intentionally and
inadvertently man-made, such as engineered viruses or unforeseen detrimental
technological advances – that the dinosaurs never faced that could easily
destroy humanity or the entire planet.
His solution is to expand humanity throughout the universe, starting with the
colonization of Mars. Musk aspires to achieve his dream within the next 20
years. To date, the plan is to charge $500,000 for 80,000 individuals to be
flown on a one-way trip to the planet and where they will initiate the process
of colonizing the planet.
5) Jeff Bezos
 The world has American entrepreneur, Jeffrey "Jeff" Bezos, to thank for
Amazon.com. If he achieves his true dreams then the world will also have him to
thank for amusement parks, hotels and colonies that will orbit the Earth, with
populations of up to 3 million people. This will be achieved through his
spaceflight company, Blue Origin.
Ultimately, Bezos wants anybody and everybody to be able to afford to go to
space. While Bezos’ ambitions regarding space travel are impressive, if not
overly ambitious, his other plans aren’t so impressive – they’re still pretty
ambitious, though.
In 2012, Bezos announced plans for a $42 million clock. Really! More
specifically it’s “The 10,000 Year Clock”. Basically it’s a 200-foot-tall
grandfather-clock-like timepiece. The plan is for it to chime every year, every
decade, every century, every millennium and every 10 millennia.
Bezos’ motivation behind the project is to remind humankind of its reliance
on technology and the inherent dangers that we as a species can and do face with
such faith in technology. The purpose and symbolism of the clock is to remind
people to have a long-term view of the future.
4) Jocelyn
Wildenstein
 New York socialite Jocelyn Wildenstein made her fortune through marriage to
billionaire, Alec Wildenstein. Despite the incredible $2.5 billion divorce
settlement, Jocelyn is best known for her very, very unique appearance.
Over the course of Jocelyn and Alec’s marriage, Jocelyn had numerous
inexplicable cosmetic surgeries. With particular focus on her facial features,
Jocelyn aspired to create a feline-like appearance in an inexplicable attempt to
retain the attention of her husband, as he loved tigers, lions and the like.
Jocelyn is rumored to have spent $4,000,000 on her surgery. Her ex-husband
once said of her obsession with cosmetic surgery that she was crazy – that she
thought she could fix her face with extreme alterations, as if it was a piece of
furniture. Due to her extreme makeovers, she became known in the tabloid media
as the cat lady and rivaled Michael Jackson for extreme and incredibly bad
facial surgeries.
Jocelyn was, however, photographed in 2010 after having even more extensive
facial surgery performed. While many had believed she had previously mutilated
her face beyond repair, she appeared to have largely undone much the original
damage inflicted.
Her appearance is now at least more human-like than cat-like.
3) Henry T. Nicholas
In 1998, American billionaire Henry T. Nicholas, often known as Nick, made a
number of alterations and extensions to his home in Laguna Hills. These
renovations included a variety of secret passageways, hidden levers and
entrances. There was also a large sports bar that was called “Nick’s Café.”
News of the hideaway and rumors that it was ultimately to be used as a “sex
cave” came to light in 2002 when the construction team behind the project
alleged that Nicholas hadn’t yet paid them for their work from 1998 to 2002.
While the lawsuit was resolved in 2002 with a confidential settlement,
Nicholas’ rumored plans for a “sex cave” were re-affirmed in 2007 when a former
assistant of Nicholas' filed a lawsuit, claiming that Nicholas and his various
companies owed $150,000 to him in back-pay.
Details emerged that Nicholas had had the interior of the alleged “sex cave”
constructed not far from the cave itself in a nearby warehouse. Allegedly, up
until his wife busted him with a prostitute, this area became his “personal
brothel”. Nicholas has insisted that the caves were built, not for debauchery,
but as elaborate rec rooms for his entire family to enjoy.
2) Roman Abramovich
Roman Abramovich is a Russian business tycoon. He is known for being the
majority owner of investment company, Millhouse LLC. Outside of Russia, he is
best known as the owner of the Chelsea Football Club, of the English Premier
League. His net worth is $14.6 billion. Abramovich bought the Chelsea Football Club
in 2003.
While he’d dreamed of winning a UEFA Champions League trophy – the top soccer
trophy in Europe – and had been prepared to provide for the club financially, the
club initially struggled on and off the field. Desperate to win a championship,
Abramovich had over-invested millions in players. Furthermore, his personal
investments in the team dwarfed the amount of cash pumped in by other club
owners.
Ten years on from his purchase of Chelsea, while he has finally achieved his
goal of a UEFA trophy, he has spent over $1 billion in doing so. Abramovoich’s
spending doesn’t stop at Chelsea. His super-yacht, Eclipse, is reported have
cost him $1.5 billion.
1) Prince Jefri
Bolkiah of Brunei
It seems that every royal family has at least one family member, who REALLY
takes their life of privilege for granted and indulges in opulence to an
unbelievable degree. For the Brunei Royal Family that said family member is
Prince Jefri Bolkiah.
Serving from 1986 to 1998, as the finance minister and chairman of the
Brunei Investment Agency (BIA), Jefri didn’t do his family or his country any
favors with his money management. After the Asian Financial Crisis in 1997,
accountants audited the books of BIA, resulting in allegations Jefri had
embezzled $14.8 billion. In 2000, Jefri was forced to relinquish all his
personal holdings over to the government to avoid criminal prosecution and keep
a residence in Brunei.
Photo Courtesy of Vanity Fair
Known as “the playboy prince,” Jefri had always lived an extravagant and wild
lifestyle. His indulgences had ranged from massive car and art collections. He
had also owned the British jeweler Asprey, along with a number of luxury hotels
throughout the world.
His misogyny and debauchery were notorious, too. Jefri frequently conducted
expensive gambling nights, complete with prostitutes on standby at a nearby
hotel. Furthermore, in 1998, Jefri was sued by a former Miss USA, who claimed
the prince had lured her to Brunei in order for her to become a sex slave. The
case was dropped purely due to Jefri’s diplomatic immunity. That same year,
Jefri bought a $500 million yacht that he named derogatorily after female
breasts, with two of its lifeboats named Nipple 1 and Nipple 2.
Specific People
15 Things You Should Know About Stephen Hawking
15 Fascinating Facts about Michael Jackson
15 Fascinating Facts about Al Capone
15 Interesting Facts about Mother Teresa
15 Interesting Facts about Walt Disney
15 Interesting Facts about George Washington
15 Interesting Facts about Gandhi
15 Interesting Facts about Franklin Roosevelt
15 Interesting Facts about Ben Franklin
Top 15 Interesting Facts about Archimedes
15 Little Known Facts about Martin Luther King
15 Interesting Facts about Ronald Reagan
15 Interesting Facts about Nelson Mandela
15 Interesting Facts About Shakespeare
15 Interesting Facts about Marie Curie
15 Interesting Facts About Julius Caesar
15 Interesting Facts about Leonardo Da Vinci
15 Interesting Facts about Captain James Cook
15 Interesting Facts about John F. Kennedy
15 Interesting Facts About Cleopatra
15 Interesting Facts about Barack Obama
15 Interesting Facts About Albert Einstein
15 Interesting Facts about Adolf Hitler
15 Interesting Facts about Christopher Columbus
15 Interesting Facts About Bill Gates
People Related
15 Most Bizarre Things Purchased by Celebrities
Top 15 Reasons Why People Commit Suicide
25 Individuals Who Thrived with Savant Syndrome
20 Celebrities Who Invented Amazing Things
Top 15 Drugs People Commonly Overdose and Die From
Top 15 Myths about Death
15 Unusual Ways People Have Died
15 Crazy Festivities Around the World
55 Celebrities With Physical Imperfections
15 Funny and Unusual Ways Interviews Have Been Held
15 Weird Ways People Improve Their Confidence
15 Of the Darkest Crime Personalities We Hope to Never Meet
15 People Who Killed for a Living
15 Famous Celebrity Meltdowns
14 Fun Activities That Have Ended Up In Death
15 Facts & Info About Human Trafficking
Shorter Top Lists:
10 Billionaires as Wasteful or Fanciful as They are Wealthy
10 Ruthless Serial Killers Who Were Never Caught
10 Dangerous Serial Killers
Informational:
Detecting Lies: How to Tell Whether or Not Some is Truthful
Cannibalism in History and the Modern World
What Your Favorite Color Reveals About You
What is a Weirdo? Defining Weirdness in Society
Media's Effect on Society
How to Attract Beautiful Women |
