The island in question, Kauai, is famous as the setting for the 1993 blockbuster film “Jurassic Park”.
Zuckerberg’s Hawaiian stronghold, whose moniker is Koolau Ranch, sits on 567 hectares of jaw-dropping, pristine Kauai real estate and was built at a cost of about US$270 million, or PHP15.2 billion, according to multiple media reports.
The “ranch” includes two mega-mansions with a total living space of about 5,295 square meters, as well as an underground, 465-square-meter concrete bunker with blast doors in case of a nuclear attack and underground tunnels leading to the mansions.
Koolau Ranch is said to be one of the world’s most expensive private residences. However, it is despised by local residents — so much so that they drew up a petition called “Stop Mark Zuckerberg from Colonizing Kauai”. The petition was signed by 1 million people.
And in the unlikely event that Koolau Ranch is bombed to smithereens before Zuckerberg can retreat there, he has a failsafe plan — a 118-meter, $300 million “gigayacht” named “Launchpad”, so big that it requires a 67-meter, $30 million support ship named “Wingman”.
Filipinos know Zuckerberg as the founder of Facebook. Almost 86 percent percent of Filipinos, or more than 100 million people, use Facebook here, making the Philippines one of Facebook’s most lucrative markets in Southeast Asia — and indeed the world.
On average, every time a Filipino clicks on an ad in Facebook, even accidentally, PHP1.13 flows into the coffers of Facebook — and much of this lucre finds its way into the silk purse of “Proconsul” Zuckerberg.
Zuckerberg’s net worth is reported to be US$248 billion, or PHP14 trillion — more than twice the Philippine government’s annual budget — making him the world’s third richest man after Elon Musk of Tesla and Space X, with a net worth of $381 billion; and after Larry Ellison, head of Oracle Corp., with $275.9 billion.
In raw numbers, the Philippines ranks sixth globally in the number of Facebook users, with 102.3 million subscribers, according to the World Population Review. The Philippines follows India, with 581.6 million; the United States, 279.8 million; Brazil, 175.1 million; Indonesia, 174 million; and Mexico, 111.4 million.
Facebook’s corporate owner is called Meta. The total amount of money that Meta earns in the Philippines is unknown because the company does not release country-by-country data on revenues. However, in its annual reports, Meta says it globally earned $164.5 billion in 2024, with $32.8 billion coming from in the Asia Pacific region. The region was the source of 27 percent of Meta’s global revenue for that year — and the Philippines is one of the largest markets in the region, after India and Indonesia.
Zuckerberg broke into the Philippine market in May 2010 with a so-called “Facebook Zero” marketing campaign. It offered a basic text-only service — no images or videos — to the big telecoms free of charge provided that the telecoms waived data charges for Facebook users.
The telecoms accepted this for two reasons. One was that prepaid sim cards were a barrier to entry into the market, and Facebook would provide an incentive for more people to buy sim cards. Meanwhile, the telecoms would get free access to a service that they correctly presumed would attract millions of new prepaid subscribers. And once users were hooked on Facebook Zero, the telecoms could “upsell” paid data plans for full access to Facebook and other services.
Meanwhile, Facebook provided free technical assistance to the telecoms, making integration into the telecoms’ technology cheap and painless.
In 2010, Facebook Zero was not marketed only on the Philippines. It was offered to telecoms in 50 countries, often to more than one operator in each country in order to avoid monopolistic control over their services.
Facebook now is available in 190 countries, which is almost all of them. However, it is banned or severely restricted in a few — China, Russia, North Korea, Myanmar, Cuba and Iran, among them.
Emerging economies are now central to Facebook’s global dominance. As a sociologist might put it, Facebook have thus become the developing countries’ gateway drug to the internet.
Zuckerberg’s rise to world class mogul has been shrouded in controversy. From the very beginning, he was accused of swiping the idea for Facebook in 2004 from three of his Harvard classmates. This resulted in a lawsuit later that year in which Zuckerberg eventually paid $20 million in cash, along with $45 million in Facebook stock options. This story is told in the acclaimed 2010 biopic “The Social Network”.
That was just the beginning. Today, Facebook — or Meta — is one of the most sued corporations globally. Facebook-slash-Meta has had so many lawsuits filed against it that it is challenging to list them. Suffice it to say that the company has been sued more than 1,000 times for billions of United States dollars in the European Union, Ireland, and the United States, and it has faced legal challenges in Kenya, Canada, Australia, Brazil and India.
Lawsuits have arisen from accusations of election interference, privacy breaches, antitrust violations, harm to children’s health, incitement to violence, data breaches, labor exploitation, cookie consent violations, violations of children’s privacy, unlawful data transfers, violations of campaign finance laws, collecting biometric data, and unauthorized data sharing.
The flow of cash between the Philippines is not one-way, however. Facebook employs more than 10,000 content moderators in the Philippines, making the country one of the largest global hubs for content moderation. Moderators here earn from PHP15,000 to PHP28,000 per month, depending on their work experience and employer. The employers are third-party firms that have contracts with Meta to inspect potentially harmful or objectionable content on Facebook.
Bryce McIntyre, PhD, resides in San Andres. He holds a doctoral degree from Stanford University, Palo Alto, California, USA.