Inside the secret doomsday bunkers of billionaires

It's no secret that billionaires have been busy prepping for the end of days. However, where these bunkers are, what they look like, and why they were built are less accissible to prying eyes. Read on to get a better idea of the frightening trend, what the bunkers look like and just how likely it will be for billionaires to survive.

Douglas Rushkoff, a renowned intellectual, devoted an entire book to the subject. His work, 'Survival of the Richest: Escape Fantasies of the Tech Billionaires (2022),' traces conversations with many unnamed billionaires who are anxiously trying to figure out how to survive societal and/or planetary collapse.

Rushkoff recounts his experience in the desert with a group of tech billionaires, who grilled him with questions about building their bunkers. Some queried about the ideal location, while others already had their bunkers up and running, complete with guards on standby, but wanted more tips from the humanist thinker.

Image: Oppidum/website video

New Zealand is a top choice for the ultra-rich aiming to rise from civilization's ashes. Although most bunker activity is kept low-key, it came to light in 2022 that US billionaire Thiel’s plans for a luxury bunker lodge were rejected by local regulators. It was also a major scandal that he (and other billionaires) bought their way into getting New Zealand citizenship to live out their end-day fantasies.

The CEO of OpenAI, the company taking the world by storm with Chat GPT, has a deal with Thiel (a conservative libertarian billionaire and head of US intelligence company Palentir) just in case the apocalypse breaks out. In 2016, before he was super famous, the New Yorker reported that Atlman planned to fly to New Zealand with his buddy Thiel in his private jet if something terrible happened.

Reddit CEO Steve Huffman told The New Yorker in 2017 that his decision to undergo eye surgery wasn't for convenience or aesthetic reasons. Instead, he sought to improve his odds of surviving a catastrophe. “If the world ends—and not even if the world ends, but if we have trouble—getting contacts or glasses is going to be a huge pain in the a*$,” he shared. “Without them, I’m effed.”

The now 39-year-old social media mogul revealed that his primary worry was “the temporary collapse of our government and structures.” Just in case, he said that he has “a couple of motorcycles. I have a bunch of guns and ammo. Food. I figure that, with that, I can hole up in my house for some amount of time.”

While the billionaire preppers are generally secretive, a private Facebook group allows them to share best practices. Huffman estimated that around half of the tech-related billionaires are at least partially prepared for doomsday. “The fears vary, but many worry that, as artificial intelligence takes away a growing share of jobs, there will be a backlash against Silicon Valley,” he told The New Yorker.

As expected, an entire industry has emerged that both caters to and sometimes fuels the nightmarish fantasies of the ultra-rich. One of the most successful companies, Vivos, offers everything from private luxury bunkers to spots in communal bunkers starting at just $35,000.

Image: Vivos Underground Shelters/terravivos/Instagram

Just outside of Jena, a German city, the Vivos doomsday bunker promises 5-star accommodations for high net worth families. This massive underground survival structure, carved by the Soviets during the Cold War into a mountain, contains everything from swimming pools to a faux shopping street.

Image: Vivos Underground Shelters/terravivos.com

While examining all the potential doomsday scenarios on its website (nuclear disaster, bio terrorism, anarchy, electromagnetic pulses, killer comets, mega tsunamis and so on) Vivos says it’s prepared for any scenario. “Members need to only arrive before their facility is locked down and secured from the chaos above,” the company, which says it has spaces for over 10,000 people, writes on its website.

Image: terravivos/Instagram

Oppidum, another company, offers what it describes as "the ultimate bespoke sanctuary," built adjacent to one's current home. The luxurious description conjures up an opulent space adorned with hand-crafted glass chandeliers, custom-made furniture, and fine-grained, solid wood flooring, all tucked deep beneath the earth's surface and surrounded by reinforced concrete layers.

Image: Oppidum/website video

In March 2020, several super-rich Americans managed to escape to New Zealand before its borders closed due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Rising S Co, a doomsday bunker manufacturer, even received frantic calls from an executive who didn’t know how to use his underground bunker, Bloomberg reported.

While lesser billionaires focus on earth, the richest individuals, like Elon Musk, are convinced about the need to colonize Mars to preserve humanity. In 2018, Musk stated that he plans to spend half of his fortune to "ensure the continuation of life (of all species) in case earth gets hit by a meteor like the dinosaurs or if WW3 happens & we destroy ourselves."

Another space-obsessed billionaire informed Wired magazine that Earth is running out of resources and catastrophe is inevitable. "People will appreciate his crusade, he says, when the ravages of climate change, depleted resources, and unbreathable air make it time to discard… 'planetary chauvinism.'"

Rather than applauding billionaires for their pragmatism, Rushkoff argues that they are prepping for a dire future of their own making. They hold significant power to shape whether AI will devastate the world, if polarized societies will collapse into civil war, or if WWIII or environmental and resource depletion will destroy the planet.

Apart from the fact that many of these luxury bunkers are unproven to work (hermetically sealed systems are incredibly challenging to maintain), other major issues arise. One critical question is who billionaires would pay to serve as their security guards, chefs, and other servants if money becomes obsolete.

Image: Vivos Underground Shelters/terravivos/Instagram

Writer Rushkoff contends that while there are multiple reasons for this end-of-world obsession, the potential for an apocalypse justifies their relentless desire for more wealth. "They have been rejecting the collective polity all along and embracing the hubristic notion that with enough money and technology, the world can be redesigned to one’s personal specifications," he writes.

Image: Scrooge McDuck and Money (Walt Disney, 1967)