Going Underground: The Strange History of Tech Billionaires and Their Bunkers

The title of this post pays homage to Going Underground, a song released by mod rockers The Jam in 1980. Some of the song’s lyrics, if you view them ironically and from a skewed perspective – and I’m always up for that assignment – could reflect the current sentiments of todays’ reclusive tech billionaires, who are going underground in an entirely different sense and for reasons of their own. 

Here's a snippet of lyrics from The Jam’s Going Underground:

And the public gets what the public wants

But I want nothing this society's got

I'm going underground (going underground)

If you think about the tech billionaires and their bunkers – it’s well documented that a few of them, including Meta magnate Mark Zuckerberg, are building luxurious shelters under sprawling residential properties – it’s doubly ironic that they should seek to escape from a society that they have helped to create.  

You might reasonably think that the bunker mentality of the tech billionaires is a relatively new phenomenon, accompanying the rise of the likes of Zuckerberg, libertarian entrepreneur and investor Peter Thiel, and other digital plutocrats. The truth, however, is that ineffably wealth tech billionaires have been going underground, in the literal sense, for at least a couple decades. 

Perhaps the most notorious case involved Broadcom co-founder Henry Nicholas, who faced two federal indictments from the U.S. Justice Department in 2008. Those charges related to securities fraud, specifically allegations that Nicholas participated in a scheme that involved backdating of stock-option grants, an illicit practice that infected a few Silicon Valley companies back in the day. 

There were other charges leveled at Nicholas, too, and they were more lurid. The following excerpt from a feature article published by Vanity Fair in late September of 2008 describes the second set of allegations against Nicholas, and even includes a candid photograph of Nicholas heading down a tunnel to his underground lair, which is exactly what he reportedly called it – with an upper-case “L.” 

In an indictment for drug trafficking, the government paints a picture of a drug fiend who hired prostitutes for himself and his customers, used cocaine, methamphetamines, Ecstasy, prescription painkillers, and more—and spiked the drinks of other technology executives without their knowledge. Nicholas pleaded not guilty, and in 2009 a jury will most likely decide his fate on all the charges. But since 2000, more than a dozen people—two of whom were paid off by Broadcom and agreed to keep their allegations secret, according to prosecutors—have filed lawsuits, draft complaints, or supporting declarations that make the government’s allegations seem like the PG-rated version of affairs. Among them: that Nicholas built a sprawling den of iniquity under his multi-million-dollar Laguna Hills mansion. “He wanted to live above ground with his wife and three children, with the option to go below ground to immerse himself in his cocaine, ecstasy, Viagra, speed, prostitutes, and party friends,” alleged the contractors who helped build what they called “the Lair.”

Those were only allegations, and they never amounted to more than that. Nicholas was not convicted. The charges were eventually dropped by prosecutors or dismissed by the trial judge.

Why Bunkers?

As the photograph accompanying the Vanity Fair article attests, however, there was a tunnel to an underground lair. Nicholas probably would not have called it a bunker, but I suppose one person’s bunker is another’s lair. We cannot say what purpose the lair served – it could have been nothing more than a billionaire’s opulent “man cave” – but contractors worked on it, and well-heeled neighbors complained about it. Beyond the tunnel and the lair, Nicholas grappled with his own personal demons, including a family tragedy that led him to campaign for crime victims’ rights.

Broadcom Corporation was eventually acquired by Avago, which then assumed Broadcom’s corporate identity, rebranding as Broadcom Inc.  To the best of my knowledge, Broadcom’s current CEO, Hock Tan, who sits on the board of Meta, has not built tunnels or bunkers under his residences.

Mark Zuckerberg apparently is keen on the bunker concept as well as the bunker reality, employing contractors to build tunnels and a large bunker under his expansive property on the Hawaiian island of Kauai. What is his motivation for going underground? We cannot know unless he tells us, but there are several reasons that somebody, usually (but not always) of considerable wealth, would want to build a bunker.

Billionaires reportedly choose to have bunkers built under their homes because of concerns about societal collapse, natural disasters, or personal security. Fear, of one sort or another, is the driver. Avarice is the driver behind purchases of super-sized yachts, tropical islands, or coveted works of art, but fear motivates the wealthy to commission and install bunkers.

The fear of societal collapse is presumably a product of the profound alienation that can attend great wealth. Of relatively modest origins and means, I have no personal knowledge of such alienation, of course, but it’s easy to imagine someone of Croesusian wealth gradually becoming suspicious of and unstuck from the broader public.

Howard Hughes, who preceded today’s technology magnates by several decades, is perhaps a textbook example of an extremely wealthy man who became unmoored psychologically and emotionally. I know, I know: Correlation does not imply causation, and Hughes might have exhibited the same symptoms of mental illness regardless of his personal wealth. But we only know what was, not what might have been.

Perhaps, though, the motivation for billionaires’ bunkers is not fear of economic resentment and plebeian revolt but fear of manmade or ecological disaster. I’m not sure how effective a bunker would be as a defense against a catastrophe such as all-out nuclear war or environmental armageddon, but, if you’ve got money to burn, it might be worth a shot.

Bunkers have become more than a cottage industry in recent years, and options range from budget-conscious models to spare-no-expense luxury shelters. You, too, can have an underground cave of your own, but it probably will not be as secure, sumptuous, or capacious as the boffo bunker Mark Zuckerberg has reportedly commissioned in Hawaii. The time-tested caveat applies: You get what you pay for, even when you pay for a bunker.

You would pay a lot for the most opulent of bunkers, which include luxurious amenities such as pools, hot tubs, saunas, games rooms, theaters, gyms, and sophisticated security systems. There’s money to be had in mining others’ fears, perhaps even especially in mining others’ fears. Top-of-the-line bunkers would also feature advanced air filtration, renewable energy, and perhaps long-term food supplies or hydroponics. When money is no option, the options are endless. 

Some observers have said that non-tech plutocrats – that would be us, dear reader – should be concerned about billionaires’ avidity for underground living. 

What do they know that we don’t know? Or are they simply paranoid, the consequence of having such a superfluity of wealth that they fear the imagined invidiousness and depredations of the disaffected masses? Perhaps they have reached a point of no return, such extreme anxiety and alienation that there is way back to something approximating trust. A few members of the billionaire class are also trying to get to Mars, where they would like to have homes away from their earthly homes, perhaps also featuring underground bunkers, presuming it is possible to dig and administer subterranean shelters on the red planet. 

While on the subject of possibilities, it is conceivable that the inspiration for billionaires’ bunkers derives from being jaded and world-weary. When you reach the top, and become inured to everything that money can buy, including unlimited travel and extravagant homes in the most desired locales worldwide, maybe there’s nothing else for you to conquer or enjoy on this planet. At that point, you look to space and to other planets, and to whatever else might be conceivable if not readily available, across an unfolding universe of infinite possibilities. 

All of us strive for something we call happiness, and we attain it periodically or temporarily, but many of us, including the most restlessly ambitious people on the planet, discover that sustainable contentedness is an elusive prize. There’s always a hunger for what’s next. For a select few, it would seem, the next new thing is underground shelters, to be followed by interplanetary space travel and the maybe even the quest for immortality. 

But life extension and immortality, figuratively and literally, are for another time.