Mark Zuckerberg recently purchased a 118-meter megayacht, a status symbol among tech billionaires.
Chris Unger/Zuffa LLC via Getty Images; Ruben Griffeon/SuperYacht Times
Megayachts have become a status symbol for the richest of the rich.
In recent years, Jeff Bezos and Mark Zuckerberg have splurged on enormous boats.
These are the biggest yachts owned by tech billionaires.
The average Joe celebrating a personal renaissance after, say, the end of a long-term relationship or when approaching a fresh decade might commemorate it with an ankle tattoo or a sportscar. But if you're a billionaire, you may instead spend hundreds of millions on a yacht.
A few years after he and his wife divorced, Jeff Bezos shelled out on a megayacht. Last year, Bezos debuted the 127-meter vessel "Koru," a Māori symbol that signifies a fresh start — perhaps referring to that with his fiancée Lauren Sanchez.
"It's a bit of a celebration of your success in life, of wealth," Giovanna Vitelli, the vice president of the Azimut Benetti Group, the world's biggest producer of superyachts, told Business Insider.
While many tech billionaires have bought yachts, the richest of the rich, like Bezos, Zuckerberg, and Oracle cofounder Larry Ellison, have gone bigger. Their boats are virtual palaces at sea, decked with amenities like gyms, spas, pools, nightclubs, and movie theaters.
A look at these megayachts — broadly defined as over 70 meters long, mostly custom-built, and often costing nine figures — offers a glimpse into how the .00001% lives. It's something few others will ever get to experience. Even chartering a yacht of this size for a week typically costs upwards of $1 million.
One major thing that hundreds of millions of dollars can buy is privacy. There are likely yachts that have not been publicly recorded or registered — for example, Evan Spiegel is rumored to own the 94-meter megayacht Bliss. In an industry ruled by discretion, deciphering who owns what is typically an exercise in stringing together many clues.
Here are the largest yachts owned by tech billionaires, listed in order of length.
Jeff Bezos: Koru and AbeonaJeff Bezos and his fiancée Lauren Sanchez spent last summer on Koru, seen on the left, with its support vessel, Abeona, seen right.
Robino Salvatore/GC Images
Amazon founder Bezos' $500 million megayacht, the 127-meter Koru, made a splash last year as it crisscrossed the Mediterranean in its first summer at sea, with its 75-meter support vessel Abeona in tow.
The sailing yacht, which is hard to miss thanks to its massive size and unique design, was host to Bezos and his fiancée Lauren Sanchez's famous friends. The couple held an engagement party on board, which reportedly drew guests including Bill Gates, Ari Emanuel, and Leonardo DiCaprio. Just a week later, they were seen on the streets of Dubrovnik, Croatia, with Orlando Bloom, Katy Perry, and Usher.
Even before its completion, Koru made headlines. It drew the ire of some Dutch people, who vowed to hurl eggs after it was announced a historic bridge in Rotterdam might be taken apart to allow the Oceanco boat through. Luckily, the shipyard made alternative plans, and an egg crisis was averted.
"I heard back in 2018 or something that somebody had ordered a classic sailing yacht," one superyacht expert told BI. "You order 125 meters, that's not really going to be classic. But it is. I think it's pretty cool."
Mark Zuckerberg: LaunchpadAerial shots of the yacht seem to show a pool on its main deck and a helipad.
Ruben Griffioen/SuperYachtTimes
Earlier this year, the yacht world was rife with rumors that Zuckerberg purchased Launchpad, a 118-meter superyacht originally designed for a sanctioned Russian businessman.
The ship made her maiden voyage in March, going from Gibraltar to St. Maarten and mooring in Fort Lauderdale, Florida.
Little is known about her interior, but photos show a large swimming pool and helipad. Her price, too, has been kept under wraps but is said to be nine figures.
Eric Schmidt: WhisperEric Schmidt bought Kismet from the Jacksonville Jaguars owner Shahid Khan — hence the figurehead — last year and renamed her Whisper.
The ship, which can fit 12 guests and a crew of 28, features a master deck with a private jacuzzi, full-service spa, lap pool, movie theater, and outdoor fireplace.
While her final sale price was not public, she was listed for 149 million euros (about $161 million at current exchange rates), and at a charity auction in January, one week aboard the ship went for $2.4 million, according to industry outlet Yacht Charter Fleet.
Barry Diller: EosBarry Diller and Diane von Furstenberg's Eos yacht has become a popular destination for celebrities.
One of the largest private sailing yachts in the world, the three-masted Lürssen schooner measures 93 meters long. She took three years to be built before being delivered to Diller in 2009, and since then, little has come to light about her interior and features.
The power couple has hosted many celebrities on the Eos, which spends its summers crisscrossing the Mediterranean and New Year's Eve in St. Barts. Over the years, guests have included Oprah Winfrey, Emma Thompson, Anderson Cooper, and Bezos, leading some to believe she provided inspiration for his Koru.
Jim Clark: AthenaNetscape founder Jim Clark has listed Athena for sale but is yet to find a buyer.
"I could easily have built a 50- or 60-meter motor yacht that would have had the same space as Athena, but I was never really interested in building a motor yacht," he told Boat International in 2016. "To my eye, she's one of the most gorgeous large sailing yachts, maybe the most gorgeous large sailing yacht in the world."
Athena has room for 10 guests and 21 crewmembers, and the only change Clark says he'd make in her design is adding more space for his kids.
"If I was forced to change something, I would convert the office on the lower deck into a children's room," he said.
The former Stanford professor tried to sell it at various points — listing it for $95 million in 2012, $69 million in 2016, and $59 million in 2017 — but it has yet to change hands.
Larry Ellison: Musashi The Mushashi superyacht, seen here in Venice, is owned by Oracle CEO Larry Ellison.
He purchased his current boat, Musashi, in 2011 for a reported $160 million from custom-yacht giant Feadship.
Named after a famous samurai warrior, the 88-meter-long yacht has both Japanese and Art Deco-inspired design elements. She also boasts amenities including an elevator, swimming pool, beauty salon, gym, and basketball court.
Ellison is known for his extravagant spending — private islands, jets, a tennis tournament — and yachting is among his favorite and most expensive hobbies. He took up racing them in the 1990s and financed the America's Cup-winning BMW Oracle Racing team.
Laurene Powell Jobs: VenusVenus was originally designed for Steve Jobs, though he never stepped foot on her.
After spending years vacationing on Ellison's yachts, Jobs wanted one for himself. He designed Venus with French starchitect and decorator Philippe Starck, and she was worth $130 million at completion.
"Venus comes from the philosophy of minimum," Starck said of her design. "The elegance of the minimum, approaching dematerialization."
Jobs and Starck began working together in 2007, the designer told Vanity Fair, and held monthly meetings over four years. Venus was delivered in 2012 to Jobs' specification: six identical cabins, a design to ensure spaces of absolute silence, and the most up-to-date technology.
"There will never again be a boat of that quality again. Because never again will two madmen come together to accomplish such a task," Starck told the magazine. "It was not a yacht that Steve and I were constructing, we were embarked on a philosophical action, implemented according to a quasi-religious process. We formed a single brain with four lobes."
Charles Simonyi: NornEarly Microsoft employee Charles Simonyi traded in his first yacht Skat, pictured here, for the bigger Norn.
Delivered in 2023, Norn is full of luxe features, including an outdoor cinema and a pool floor that lifts to become a light-up dancefloor. It shares a militaristic style with Skat, which Simonyi sold in 2021.
Skats's name is derived from the Danish word for treasure, and it had a listing price of 56.5 million euros and was launched in 2002.
"The yacht is to be home away from my home in Seattle, and its style should match the style of the house, adapted for the practicalities of the sea," Simonyi once said.
Sergey Brin: Dragonfly Butterfly, owned by Sergey Brin, is the smaller of his two yachts.
Also in his fleet is the superyacht Butterfly, a mere 38 meters long. Often moored in the Bay Area, her crewmembers spend their downtime kitesurfing and giving swimming lessons to local kids.
The rest of his marine lineup includes a smaller boat called Firefly, as well as Jet Skis, foilboards, dinghies, and kiteboards. It takes a team of 50 full-time employees to manage, steer, and maintain the entire operation.
Sindhu Sundar contributed to an earlier version of this story.
