Top 10 Weirdest Things Done by Billionaires
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The extremely wealthy are another bread of person. The mindset that it takes to become extremely rich is very different than the regular persons mind set. It requires a level of focus, determination, and drive that most people just do not have. However, even within the wealthy crowd there is still a big distinction. The differences between millionaires and billionaires are just as great. In fact, they are even greater than the differences between millionaires and everyone else. While a millionaire can buy a lot, a billionaire can do truly anything they want due to their wealth. This billionaire mindset is what truly sets them apart in both how they earn their money through things such as crypto currencies and the things that they do with it. Check out below for the top 10 weirdest things done by billionaires for a sneak peak into billionaire mindset.
#10: Jocelyn Wildenstein
Jocelyn Wildenstein was the wife of Alec Nathan Wildenstein, an American billionaire businessman and art dealer. She is the perfect example of how billionaires think differently. When she was young, she was a very beautiful woman. However, after she met her billionaire husband, she started an extreme plastic surgery transformation journey in order to please her husband. Over the course of over four decades she slowly transformed her face to look more and more like the big cats (lions, cheetahs, tigers, ect…) that he loved.[1]Daily Mail – Is this the scariest picture EVER of the Bride of Wildenstein? However, this did not seem to really work, as she later divorced him after finding him cheating with another woman. But all did not end terribly for her, as she got $2.5 billion in the divorce settlement with an additional $100 million per year for 13 years.
#9: Mark Zuckerberg
Mark Zuckerberg became a billionaire when most people normally would still be getting their first jobs. Despite this, he is generally pretty normal. While he does seem to wear the same clothes all the time and act slightly awkward, he generally has never really acted out in any weird ways. Maybe it has something to do with the fact that he earned all the money himself.
However, even Mark Zuckerberg has his eccentric ways. In 2011, he made a declaration that he would not eat any meat unless he killed it with his own hands. He took this one step further by claiming in a Facebook post in May 2011, that “I just killed a pig and a goat.”[2]Huffington Post – Mark Zuckerberg’s Meat Challenge Over: Apparently The CEO Isn’t Killing His Own Steaks Anymore These days he does not kill his own meat anymore, but still, to think that the head of a multi-billion dollar company that helps connect people from all around the world was at one time killing his own meat is a bit weird to think about.
#8: Jeff Bezos
Jeff Bezos is a walking encyclopedia on how to get rich. In fact, as the founder and CEO of Amazon.com he is currently the richest man in the world with a net worth over $100 billion. With such a wealth of money he has invested it in many eccentric and weird billionaire hobbies that others could not dream of. For example, he has invested much of his own money in his company Blue Origins with the idea of privatizing flying to space. Furthermore, he funded oceanographic teams to search the bottom of the ocean for parts of the Apollo 11 engine module. Lastly, and what best shows this different billionaire mindset, he invested $42 million of his own money on a project know as the Clock of the Long Now.
This clock is designed to last 10,000 years and will be buried underneath some of his property in Texas.[3]WIRED – How to Make a Clock Run for 10,000 Years To give you an idea of how long that is, the oldest civilizations, such as the Egyptians, did not show up until around 5,000 years ago. To give you an idea of how crazy this is, the Smithsonian wants to build a similar clock, but still is looking for the funds.
#7: Cayetana Fitz-James Stuart 18th Duchess of Alba
While Cayenta Fitz-James Stuart the 18th Duchess of Alba may not teach you how to get rich, she definitely can teach you the difference of the billionaire mindset. Her wealth was estimated at being around $4.7 billion and she had some much land that it was said she could travel from the north to the south of Spain without ever having to leave one of her properties.[4]HELLO! – Love conquers all for Spain’s most colourful aristocrat However, she decided to renounce it all for love marrying Alfonso Diez Carabantes, a man of relatively modest family origins and merely a government civil servant. Some people such as the King of Spain were so worried about her marriage, that she gave all her children their inheritance early.
#6: Howard Hughes
While Howard Hughes was able to become a billionaire by inheriting his wealth for an oil tool drilling empire, do not be fooled, as he parlayed this initial wealth in order to become even richer. Pretty much whatever he wanted to do was available to him. He started by investing his money in many popular movies of the time such as Hell’s Angels (1930), Scarface (1932), The Outlaw (1943), and His Kind of Woman (1951).[5]IMBd – Howard Hughes
He took this a step further by starting his own company, Hughes Aircraft Company, just so that he could make really fast planes that he could fly. However, this lead to his eventual demise, as in 1946, he crashed in one of his experimental planes, severely hurting himself. This led to his eventual downward demise and some of the weirdest things that he ever did. For example, after his crash he would spend months in dark rooms living on a diet of only milk, chicken, and chocolate bars all while not bathing himself and only going to the bathroom in bottles.
#5: Kim Jong-Un
Kim Jong-Un is the supreme leader of North Korea. But do not take his billionaire mindset on how to get rich from him. Using his power as the dictator of the hermit kingdom, he has amassed a great amount of personal wealth. It is estimated at $5 billion. However, much of the population of North Korea, unlike South Korea, lives well below the poverty line. At the same time, Kim Jong-Un enjoys drinking and partying along with a group of “pleasure women” to entertain him.
On top of that, he has been known to order mass executions of people who considers a threat. However, he does not just stop at the offending person. He goes ahead and kills the whole family just to make a point. All of this may sound extremely weird and even crazy. However, that is not all. Perhaps the weirdest thing that Kim Jong-Un has done was have one of his favorite cartoons from 30 years ago recreated so that he could still watch it on tv.[6]Vice – Kim Jong-un Likes Cartoons, So He Remade North Korea’s Favorite One
#4: Warren Buffett
Warren Buffett is an American business investor. He is currently ranked as the third richest man in the world with an estimated net worth of $87.5 billion. He is a great example of the billionaire mindset. His personal philosophy of value investing (seeking out undervalued stocks) and a high level of personal frugality despite his great wealth are great examples.
However, he has done several weird things, at least to the eyes of a person that is not a billionaire. For example, when he dies, he has pledged 99% of his wealth to philanthropic ventures such as the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. Furthermore, it is said that he still uses a cheap and outdated flip style phone. In addition, he likes to eat at local McDonalds. This is because he has a special membership card that allows him to eat free. But, this is not the weirdest thing he has ever done. The company he is currently the head of, Berkshire Hathaway, was not always his company. In fact, he originally bought the company just so that he could fire the CEO of the company.[7]InvestorsFriend – WHY DID WARREN BUFFETT BUY BERKSHIRE HATHAWAY IN 1965?
#3: Clive Palmer
Clive Palmer is a mining mogul in Australia. Through his iron ore, nickel, and coal empire he has amassed an estimated wealth of $1.4 billion. On top of digging things out of the ground, through his billionaire mindset, he sees himself as sort of an archeologist. Viewing himself along the lines of John Hammond in Jurassic Park. In fact, he tried to be the first man to successful clone dinosaurs. He did this so that he could have his own Jurassic Park. When this did not work, he went for the second-best thing. He created more than 100 animatronic dinosaurs which now populate Palmer Coolum Resort, one of his golf resorts.[8]ABC – Clive Palmer’s dinosaur Jeff destroyed by fire at Palmer Coolum Resort
#2: Saudi Prince Al-Waleed Bin Talal
Much of Saudi Arabia’s wealth comes from its mass oil fortunes. The Saudi Royal family has taken great advantage of this, with several members of the family on the billionaire list. Saudi Prince Al-Waleed Bin Talal is no exception at an estimated net worth of $17.4 billion.
With this wealth, he could buy anything he could ever want. However, he is somewhat of a spend thrift. At least as much of a penny pincher a billionaire could be. In 2007, he placed an order for a VIP version of Airbus’ A380 double-deck plane. This is the largest passenger plane in the world. It was supposed to come with all the bells and whistles. With his great negotiating skills, he was able to get the price down to $130 million. The normal price for this plane is over $300 million.[9]Forbes – The Incredible, Amazing Jumbo Jet That Prince Alwaleed Never Really Bought Now comes for the weirdest part. After several years, he did not buy the plane just because he changed his mind. Now that is a great example of the weird billionaire mindset.
#1: Jeff Greene
Jeff Greene is a real estate tycoon who made his billions on the housing recession of 2006. Using an investment strategy and billionaire mindset of trading in credit default swaps he amassed an estimated net worth of $3.8 billion. However, Jeff Greene’s weird investing strategies are not the weirdest thing about him. Due to his obsession with boxing, for his wedding, he paid Mike Tyson to be his best man.[10]The New York Times – An Opulent Bet on Housing
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