The world of the ultra rich is a peculiar place. While most of us measure luxury by whether our kettle boils without tripping the electrics, billionaires live in a parallel reality where money bends logic, taste, and occasionally the laws of physics. It is a realm where submarines from old films become personal projects, where entire islands are redesigned to suit one man’s mood, and where even a yacht can have relationship problems and end up with a side yacht.
These are not just expensive purchases. These are reality glitching, dimension shifting, Stranger Things level acquisitions that make you wonder whether the rest of us are even playing the same game. So join us as we take a tour through the bizarre toys, retro indulgences, and high end technological curiosities that only the richest people on Earth could ever dream of owning.
10,000 Year Mountain Clock - Jeff Bezos
Bezos is funding a mechanical clock buried inside a mountain in Texas that will tick once per year. It is designed to run for 10,000 years. It serves no practical purpose other than saying, “I own time now.” This is what happens when a man reads one too many science fiction novels and decides that clocks are not ambitious enough.
Giant Goat Riding a Rocket Staute - Elon Musk
A crypto project built a 30 foot metal sculpture of a goat strapped to a rocket to honour Musk. They delivered it to Tesla headquarters. Nobody asked for this. Nobody needed this. Yet here we are, with an enormous goat riding a rocket.
Titanic II Project - Clive Palmer Project
Australian billionaire Clive Palmer has spent years trying to rebuild the Titanic. A full scale, functioning replica. He insists this one will not sink, which is exactly what people said the first time. It remains a bold mix of nostalgia, engineering, and “what could possibly go wrong”.
James Bond Submarine Car - Elon Musk
Musk bought the Lotus Esprit from The Spy Who Loved Me, "Wet Nellie". Yes, the actual screen used submarine car. Most people would place it in a tasteful display. Musk announced he wants to make it work for real since it current requires scuba gear to pilot underwater.
7,000+ Car Collection - The Sultan of Brunei
The Sultan boasts the largest private car collection on Earth, with more than seven thousand vehicles. Ferraris, Bentleys, Mercedes, Rolls Royces, gold plated everything, and one off models that manufacturers built just for him. It is less a garage and more an automotive continent.
Antilia Skyscraper with an Indoor Snow Room - Mukesh Ambani
Antilia is widely considered the most expensive private home ever built. 27 floors of luxury, three helipads, multiple cinemas, a ballroom, hanging gardens, and a room that produces artificial snowfall through high end technology. It is a monument to rich ambition, a place where money solves problems nobody else has. It is also the only building in Mumbai where you can look out at thirty degrees of heat while shivering indoors, like a retro snow globe powered by unimaginable wealth.
Lanai Island with a Japanese Village - Larry Ellison
Ellison bought 98% of the Hawaiian island of Lanai, making it one of the most expensive private island purchases in history. He then built a Japanese style village complete with tea houses, koi ponds, zen gardens, and ryokan inspired architecture. When most people want a holiday, they book a flight. Ellison builds a new country.
Side Superyacht - Jeff Bezos
Most people buy a boat. Bezos bought Koru, a superyacht so enormous it has a side yacht. Yes, he bought a superyacht so big it requires a second superyacht called Abeona to follow it around carrying the helicopter, the water toys, the staff, and extra supplies it is the height of luxury. It is the maritime version of having a side chick, both can cost hundreds of millions, but this one needs its own captain.
Private Trampoline Room - Bill Gates
Gates has a dedicated trampoline room inside his mansion with ceilings tall enough to host an Olympic gymnastics event. It is the sort of space you build when you have so much money that gravity becomes a hobby. Most people use their computers if they want to crash, Bill Gates just climbs onto the trampoline.
Anti-Paparazzi Laser System - Roman Abramovich
The superyacht Eclipse features a defence system that detects camera lenses and fires infrared light to block photos, along with having a missile defence system. It is the closest thing the modern world has to a stealth mode button. Imagine being so rich that privacy becomes a weapons grade feature.
Impulse Purchase of Twitter - Elon Musk
Musk bought Twitter for 44 billion dollars, which is the rich person equivalent of buying something on impulse at the till and then realising it comes with thirty thousand employees and a global political crisis. He renamed it X, broke half of it, rebuilt the other half, and turned the whole platform into the most expensive midlife experiment in history. It remains the only social network that cost more than most countries’ defence budgets.
