Mark Zuckerberg has taken a foray into livestock rearing on his Kauai ranch, but his approach is anything but typical. The Meta CEO is raising wagyu and angus cattle on a diet of macadamia nuts and beer, according to his own Instagram post, a luxurious feed for what he claims will be "some of the highest quality beef in the world." While the billionaire tech mogul is no stranger to grand gestures of innovation, critics are questioning both the environmental and ethical implications of his latest venture.
Zuckerberg, whose net worth stands at a colossal $129 billion, noted in his social media update that each cow on his ranch consumes between 5,000 to 10,000 pounds of feed annually, necessitating "a lot of acres of macadamia trees." Considering the water requirements for the nuts, one macadamia tree can use up to about 4,800 gallons per year, critics like Fast Company point out the enormous resource demand, with one Zuckerberg cow potentially requiring 740,000 gallons annually. Meta's CEO did have to explain how the diet would impact the cattle, with the effects on taste expected to take a "couple more years to fully explore," but maintaining that macadamia nuts are "very high nutrition density with lots of proteins and fats," as reported by Fast Company.
The billionaire's pivot to agriculture has caught the attention of environmental advocates, who are voicing their concerns. “We need to promote the viability of small and medium-sized farms that work to feed everyone, not just wealthy celebrities," argued Mitch Jones, policy director at Food & Water Watch, in statements obtained by The Guardian. The main point of contention lies in the environmental cost of cattle ranching, particularly beef's contribution to deforestation, water pollution, and global heating, a topic that's increasingly urgent as the climate crisis escalates. Critics on social platforms owned by Elon Musk, like X, have even gone as far as mocking Zuckerberg's farming pursuits.
The issue has also sparked discussions around food ethics and economic disparities, with Peta and other social commentators pointing to the stark contrast between Zuckerberg's lavish farming project and a world grappling with food insecurity and climate threats. Despite the back-and-forth, Zuckerberg remains committed to his “lifetime hobby” and sees the ranch as an ongoing project that's improving with "every season," as he dined on a steak from his own farm, believing it's about the right amount of food with a crying-laughing emoji in response to a commenter's surprise at the quantity of feed, SFGate reported.
Details of his $100 million compound, including the construction of an underground bunker, have also been capturing the public's eye, with a recent Wired investigation revealing insights into the luxury lifestyle that these tech moguls seem to be curating for themselves. Mark Zuckerberg, it seems, is not just engineering the future of social media, but also that of macadamia-fed, beer-sipping cattle, in a blend of agriculture and affluence that has many questioning the future of sustainability in a billionaire's world.
