While Meta’s Teen Addiction Case Exploded, Zuck Bought a Castle

 

This month, Mark Zuckerberg reportedly added a new property to his already sprawling real estate portfolio: A nearly 200-year-old Gothic castle in Ireland, worth as much as $35 million. 

Days after news of the purchase broke, Zuckerberg’s company, Meta, agreed to pay up to $17 billion to settle a landmark lawsuit brought by dozens of U.S. states accusing the company of deliberately designing Facebook and Instagram to be addictive for children and teens. 

Although there’s no relation between Zuck’s gluttonous purchase and this huge settlement, the timing of it all offers a striking window into how enormous the wealth surrounding Zuckerberg and his company have become. As we know: The guy is loaded. 

Per reports, Zuckerberg and his wife, Priscilla Chan, recently acquired Strancally Castle—a Gothic Revival estate in County Waterford overlooking Ireland’s River Blackwater. The purchase price hasn’t been publicly disclosed, but the Irish Times estimated the property’s value at €20 million to €30 million, or roughly $23 million to $35 million. The Times also noted that this purchase was 10% of the cost of Zuckerberg’s 387-ft. superyacht, Launchpad.

The estate spans about 440 acres, and the castle was built around 1830. According to Architectural Digest, the castle was reputed to have a “murder hole” trapdoor that dropped victims into the river so… yeah. According to Zuckerberg’s spokesperson, the family bought the property to preserve its history and spend more time in Ireland, where Meta has also maintained its European headquarters since 2009.

This is hardly Zuckerberg’s first extravagant property. According to Business Insider, his real estate holdings have included properties in Palo Alto, California; Lake Tahoe; Hawaii, Washington, D.C.; and Miami Beach, Florida. 

$23 million, however, suddenly seems like peanuts compared to the sum Meta was asked to cough up. 

On Wednesday, Meta agreed to pay up to $17 billion to settle claims from 47 states and the District of Columbia, accusing the company of deliberately engineering Facebook and Instagram to be addictive for users under the age of 13. The states also accused Meta of collecting data from children under 13 without parental consent. The company has denied wrongdoing.

And the settlement involves more than money. According to a Wednesday press release by Attorney General Brian L. Schwalb (D-Washington D.C.), Meta also agreed to major changes to its platforms, including limits on teens’ daily usage, restrictions on notifications during school hours and overnight, stronger parental controls, as well as other child-safety measures.

Still, the settlement is horrific considering what’s been spilling out in court. Per the company’s own internal documents, top level officials schemed to get teens addicted to their product. One document said, “teens are hooked despite how it makes them feel. Instagram is addictive.” Another described young users as “the young ones are the best ones.” And internal communications reportedly singled out 10-to-12-year-olds as “special” because they had the highest long-term retention rates. Prosecutors argued these weren’t isolated observations, but evidence of a company that understood exactly how compelling its products were to children while publicly downplaying the risks. Meta, however, maintains the documents were cherry-picked and taken out of context.

For most companies, a $17 billion settlement would sound existential. For Meta, it arrived as Zuckerberg is shopping for feudal real estate—buying castles, and sailing on yachts worth hundreds of millions of dollars.

Forbes currently estimates Zuckerberg’s personal fortune at about $200 billion, making him the sixth-richest person in the world. A $35 million castle represents roughly 0.018% of his net worth.

It’s a grotesque illustration of just how profitable our—and apparently, children’s—attention have become. Meta can agree to pay one of the largest settlements in U.S. history over allegations it knowingly hooked young people, and still the guy on top sits on a fortune comically enormous.