With megayachts and their environmental impact garnering more and more controversy, people have recounted online the time one billionaire's ego got in the way of his megayacht's functionality, leaving him stuck far offshore among noisy oil tankers.
When tech billionaire Larry Ellison of Oracle heard that archrival Paul Allen of Microsoft was building a megayacht that would be longer than his, Ellison spent millions of dollars to have his vessel extended by about 26 feet mid-construction, according to Luxury Launches.
Once completed, Ellison's 450-foot Rising Sun was nothing short of a floating mansion. The megayacht boasted five decks and 82 rooms, plus a basketball court that doubled as a helipad.
Ellison even paid someone to follow the megayacht in a smaller boat to retrieve basketballs that went overboard, Luxury Launches reported separately.
There was just one problem: Rising Sun proved too large to enter the harbor at trendy billionaire hangouts like Cannes and Monaco, leaving Ellison sometimes stuck as far as a mile offshore, per Luxury Launches. Eventually, Ellison decided to cut his losses and sold Rising Sun to music mogul David Geffen.
Ellison was not the only tech billionaire to let his self-righteousness over yacht size blind him to practical considerations.
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When Amazon's Jeff Bezos had his $500-million megayacht constructed in Holland, he failed to consider that the vessel's giant masts would not be able to fit under a beloved 100-year-old bridge that it would need to clear in order to reach the sea, The Independent reported.
Bezos even considered paying to have the bridge dismantled and rebuilt, until local outrage — including threats to egg the megayacht as it passed — forced Bezos to find another solution, per The Independent.
According to Oxfam, it would take the average person 860 years to be responsible for the same amount of heat-trapping pollution that one megayacht releases in a single year.
Ironically, Ellison reportedly paid the person who followed his megayacht to collect overboard basketballs because he didn't want to pollute the ocean, per Luxury Launches.
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Definitely 👍 With the megayachts and private jets of the ultrarich being responsible for so much of the heat-trapping pollution entering the atmosphere, it sometimes can feel like actions taken at the individual level do not matter.
However, there are still ways to have your voice heard and make helpful decisions, from taking public transit to driving an EV to installing solar on your home, that do make a difference.
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