Mark Zuckerberg owns an over 1,600 acre estate on the Hawaiian island of Kauai called Ko’olau Ranch. His ownership has been controversial, to put it nicely. He made headlines in 2017 for filing lawsuits against Hawaiians who owned land within his estate. Thankfully, those suits have since been dropped.
Well, Zuck recently revealed via Instagram one of his intentions for the Kauai property, and according to him, it’s his “most delicious” project yet. Because he can, the 6th richest person in the world is raising cattle and feeding them macadamia nuts and beer so they can produce “the highest quality beef in the world.” And wouldn’t you know, those cattle are wagyu and angus, because of course they are.
Zuckerberg, the CEO of Meta, posted a photo of himself on Wednesday eating a steak from his ranch, and wrote: “Started raising cattle at Ko’olau Ranch on Kauai, and my goal is to create some of the highest quality beef in the world.
“The cattle are wagyu and angus, and they’ll grow up eating macadamia meal and drinking beer that we grow and produce here on the ranch. We want the whole process to be local and vertically integrated. Each cow eats 5,000-10,000 pounds of food each year, so that’s a lot of acres of macadamia trees. My daughters help plant the mac trees and take care of our different animals. We’re still early in the journey and it’s fun improving on it every season. Of all my projects, this is the most delicious.”
There was a mixed reaction to the post. Some social media users hailed it “inspiring” and wished him “success”, saying it is important people know where their food comes from. However, others were critical, and said they were “disappointed”. One Instagram user said: “Keep destroying the environment. Raising cattle is one of the biggest causes of greenhouse gases. Such a disgusting and entitled thing to be doing.”
Another wrote on Facebook: “Wish you can share foods to many unfortunate ones though. That would be a better news to post since you own this platform.”
Okay, my first thought was a dorky joke about how I guess Zuck’s secret cattle aren’t doing Dry January. (Ba dum cha!) I know, I know, but I couldn’t not make it. So with that out of the way, I did do a little bit of research and apparently, beer really is a thing when it comes to feeding cows, but it’s not a super common thing. My search for macadamia nuts as a meal yielded results that said it was less common, but most of the search hits were about Zuck’s cows. Oh, to be a billionaire and have the money to play around with cow diets.
While I absolutely think it’s important to buy local and know where your food is coming from, I can’t help but roll my eyes at Zuckerberg’s whole setup. If he’s serious about getting into the beef industry, he should give back to the native Hawaiians by selling it at a reasonable price, but we all know they’re not his eventual targeted market. Imagine being one of the richest people in the world with the power to buy whatever property you want and raise whatever type of food you want to raise…and that food is still a super expensive type of beef that excludes the majority of people in the world from being able to afford it. Actually, I guess that checks out. Homegrown beer-fed cattle for me, but not for thee.
Macadamia nuts can be fed to cattle in limited quantities and some people add hops to cattle feed. I don’t know of any benefit of letting cattle drink beer or if they even would. Cattle still have to have roughage in the form of grass or hay for their rumen to function correctly. I hope he has some competent people actually handling his stock program.
JFC. Thank you. I raise cattle and I’m just sitting here thinking all those nuts in their rumen, that just sounds like a recipe for disaster. And for unhappy and unhealthy animals. What a dope.
I cannot stand this guy and will leave it at that….
My initial response to this was “idiot”. I just cannot with these types.
I am surprised he doesn’t feed them beluga caviar. Guess he hasn’t thought of it yet.
This is IN ADDITION to their normal cattle diet, correct? Or is he an animal abuser in addition to being a general all-purpose asshole?
I showed this to my rancher husband who got a good laugh from it. He has worked so hard to improve the clovers and grasses on our ranch so that our cattle are strictly grass fed. We also have planted grasses and reeds specifically for migrating birds and ducks. Zuck is playing at being a rancher. I’ll bet he wears a huge Stetson!
TOOL!
Zuck and Bezos both SUCK!
The good they could do for others with even a 5% donation of their wealth yearly.
Steve Jobs estate is another.
How much did he leave the wife/kids? $200M or more.
How about Woz? He has to be sitting on close to $400-$600Million.
Off the top of my head: Gates, Buffett, Zuck, Musk, Branson, Packer, every majority owner of a MLB, NFL, NHL and other sports teams, Geffin, Calvin Klein, Ralph Lauren, McCartney, Yoko,, Clapton, Jimmy Page, Tom Cruise, Beyonce, Tyler Perry, Oprah, Adele, Springsteen, G. Brooks, Katsenberg, DvF, Barry Diller, Iler, the list goes on and on. These are just the public/entertainment folks worth Billions, hundred of Millions. Add in the businessmen we have never heard their names.
Tax the 1%. TAX!!
While I don’t disagree with you, most charitable donations are private except to the recipients and the IRS. I donate annually to a local non profit and that amount is never disclosed.
From http://www.learning.candid.org – “There is no comprehensive source of information that reveals who gives to a specific charity, because the IRS does not require most nonprofits to tell you where their donations come from. The exceptions are donors to private foundations and political organizations.”
I guarantee you that everyone you mentioned donates to non profits, for profit hospitals, etc. They would be stupid not to. It helps with taxes.
Zuck for example, with his wife, has donated over 3 billion dollars to charities. Yes, that is a small amount compared to his entire net worth, but it’s not a small amount. They also recently pledged to give away 99% of their net worth, about 45 billion dollars.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chan_Zuckerberg_Initiative
Here is a list of the most charitable donors:
https://www.forbes.com/sites/forbeswealthteam/2022/01/19/americas-top-givers-2022-the-25-most-philanthropic-billionaires/?sh=6c9372203a6c
Warren Buffett donated 99% of his net worth. 46.1 billion dollars.
Bill and Melinda Gates have only donated 10% of their net worth which amounts to 33.4 billion. I would imagine they plan on continuing to donate more.
Some of your callouts are more deserved than others. When I can’t afford to donate financially, I donate my time! I work with three different non profits, one known nationally (local chapter) and two are purely local (a children’s hospital and an animal rescue group). Every bit helps.
Reminder that this is basically a tax dodge so that his house and land are taxed at lower farm rates.
Makes me hate him even more.
I live in Asheville, NC, which is fairly rural once you get outside the city.
We have the most breweries per capita in the US and a lot of small family farms. Many of the breweries give the byproducts (wheat, barley, hops etc) to farmers to feed their cows and hogs, making the “farm to table” concept a bit different. The farmers and other businesses here collaborate on lots of projects to increase sustainability and it’s really cool to witness.
I don’t know a lot about steak, but the picture of the one he had in his post did not look good. Just really really fatty. Like fat inches thick. Maybe people like that?
Zuckerberg is just crying out to be taxed more. He has too much money.
oh, of course, Zuck would find a way to lower his property tax. Farm category for house, land.
I actually hate him. Gates, Zuck, Bezos, Musk all 4 of these wealth hoarding pricks make me angry.
If I got close enough to physically slap them, I would. Boo! Boo them! At least.
Zuck is absolute proof that brain cells do not grow in proportion to your increasing bank balance.
This is right up there with Charles’ car that runs on cheese and wine. Tinkering with food production is something that most independently wealthy people find their way around to at some point. I don’t really begrudge dilettantes their projects – when they’re collaborating with others – because they have the ability to attempt the kind of wacko ideas that people constrained by money would never try. Usually that’s just entertainment for the rest of us but occasionally they demonstrate new and useful ideas.
Why wouldn’t you just have them drink water? So weird.
I had to double check and make sure it wasn’t a Dlisted GOOP pretentious product name post.
😂
If he can classify the property as a farm, he gets lower taxes.
The beef will not be eaten by anyone but his own family, most likely.
Dont believe stories put out by Zukerberg’s p.r. Northshore Kalo, owned by Zuckerberg, continued to buy up native Hawaiians’ ancestral lands after Zuck supposedy dropped the lawsuit. That man is evil, and I don’t use the word lightly.
I can’t imagine that macadamias are that healthy for cattle. Are they shelled by hand (hugely time/labor intensive) or machine, needing high energy consumption?
I think Wagyu cattle in Japan get some beer. Has anyone ever seen an alcohol-impaired steer?