Staff in the office of Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg have strongly denied reports that he bought a luxurious passenger super yacht – worth at least $140 million – in Monaco last September.
‘The reports related to Mark purchasing a yacht are completely inaccurate as he did not buy a yacht,’ a spokesman in his office said.
Turkey’s Hurriyet Daily News said that Zuckerberg secretly acquired the giant ship, called Ulysses, from another self-made billionaire, New Zealander Graeme Hart.
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Ulysses is reported to be capable of hosting 30 guests in 15 private suites – it has 43 crew members
Changing it up: Last week, Zuckerberg announced that the Facebook news feed would be changing to prioritize posts by friends and family
The company has for years prioritized material that its complex computer algorithms think people will engage with through comments, ‘likes’ or other ways of showing interest
But the ship’s records only state that it was purchased late last year by an unknown buyer and there is no independent corroboration of the Hurriyet report.
The vessel can withstand the toughest weather conditions, according to Gizmodo.com, which makes it ‘the perfect vessel to wait out an impending apocalypse that only you, the billionaire creator of Facebook, know about’.
‘Ulysses comes fully equipped with a helicopter deck, eight dining locations, five lounges, five bars, a gym, a day spa, a sauna, a massage room, a wine tasting room, and a cinema, all inside a hull reportedly designed to withstand ‘the arctic circles and the world’s hottest regions,’ it reported.
The reports related to Mark purchasing a yacht are completely inaccurate as he did not buy a yacht
The yacht has additional storage space filled with an abundance of water toys, including ‘Harleys, Superbikes, all terrain vehicles, jets skis and all the traditional toys’ – and is ‘the perfect getaway vehicle for when the big flood comes’.
But Facebook staff are adamant the reports are not true.
‘Mark did not buy it, does not own a yacht and was not involved in the sale,’ a spokesman insisted.
Last week it emerged that Zuckerberg’s decision to prioritize posts from family and friends over brand-driven content on Facebook’s News Feed had cost him a small fortune.
Zuckerberg said that the company would change the filter for the News Feed to prioritize what friends and family share, while reducing the amount of non-advertising content from publishers and brands.
It was estimated by Bloomberg that the boss of the world’s largest social media network lost $3.3billion off his net worth on Friday.
Facebook shares fell 4.5 percent on Friday after the closing bell on Wall Street.
Zuckerberg began the day worth $77.8billion but ended it worth $74billion, Bloomberg said.
The new figures meant that Spanish retail billionaire Amancio Ortega leapfrogged Zuckerberg to take fourth place on the list of the world’s richest people.
Yet both Zuckerberg and Ortega have a way to go to catch the world’s wealthiest human, Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos.