Amid the serene coasts of Hawaii, tech giants have carved out substantial domains, dubbing it home or claiming second homes for vacation retreats. Now, with the island of Maui devastated by wildfires, how did these digital moguls respond to the urgent pleas for aid?
The first who comes to mind is Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff, who’s woven Hawaii’s spirit of “Ohana” into his company’s culture. Benioff has a sprawling compound on Hawaii, the state’s largest island. He acquired the land in 2000 for $12.5 million and spent years designing it, even creating his own construction company to do so.
When we reached out to Benioff, he told us that Salesforce donated $1 million to World Central Kitchen, a nonprofit entity dedicated to offering meals in the aftermath of natural disasters. Benioff cited the company’s “ongoing relationship” with chef-owner José Andrés, and added that Salesforce has also “made small donations to other Hawaiian NGOs.” An internal message seen by Fortune showed Benioff rallying Salesforce staff to join in the donation effort as well.
According to several insiders, Benioff kicked off a companywide meeting last week with “a Hawaiian prayer, lei laying, and hula dancing.” Though the San Francisco company’s staff is well-versed in Benioff’s Ohana ethos, some found the pageantry awkward amid the backdrop of Maui’s raging inferno.
With climate change further compounding Hawaii’s summer dry season, a wildfire combined with extreme winds created what the governor called a “1,000-degree” fire tornado, destroying about 80% of the city of Lahaina on the island of Maui. The estimated death toll has now risen to 106, with “portable morgues” to help authorities identify and process remains.
Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg has stitched together a plot of land on the island of Kauai that now totals more than 1,300 acres, including some of the island’s coveted beachfront. The Meta CEO paid $49.6 million in 2014 for the first 350 acres and has been adding to it over the years—occasionally causing friction with the locals.
On Friday, Zuckerberg’s wife, Priscilla Chan, took to Facebook to announce that the couple were making a donation of an unspecified amount, and encouraging others to join them. A representative from the Chan-Zuckerberg foundation told Fortune that they have given $400,000 to the Hawaii Community Foundation’s Maui Strong Fund, a foundation which they’ve previously given more than $26 million to for things like Kauai flood relief, COVID assistance, education, and economic development.
Amazon founder Jeff Bezos is creating a $100 million fund to help Maui “get back on its feet,” according to an Instagram post from his fiancée Lauren Sanchez.
It’s less clear what, if anything, some of Hawaii’s other large tech landowners are doing. Among the most prominent of the group is Oracle cofounder Larry Ellison, who spent a whopping $300 million in 2012 to purchase 98% of the island of Lanai. Ellison’s team did not respond to Fortune’s request for comment.
Then there’s PayPal cofounder Peter Thiel, who paid $27 million to secure a Makena mansion (roughly 10 miles from the fires) on Maui’s southwestern coast, which was the county’s most expensive purchase of a single-family home, according to the Wall Street Journal. Thiel did not respond to a request for comment on donation efforts.
It’s clear that billionaires buying large areas of land in a place where space is already scarce raises issues for native Hawaiians. As Insider reported in a 2021 feature story, the properties acquired by techies like Zuckerberg are part of a long history where Hawaii’s natives have been displaced and marginalized by foreigners. With the devastating fires uprooting thousands of Hawaiians, the spotlight is once more on these superrich landowners who are taking up so much space.
As Hawaii confronts the fallout from the disaster, the island’s allure for Silicon Valley’s elite might face more scrutiny than ever before. Locals have already urged tourists to yield space for the displaced, and vacation rentals and Airbnbs have turned into sanctuaries. The strains of recovery are visible across the island, and it remains to be seen how many of the tech entrepreneurs who benefit from the island’s beauty will use their funds to protect it from further climate catastrophes.
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Kylie Robison
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