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Mark Zuckerberg Secretly Spends $30 Million On Neighbor's Homes To Maintain Privacy

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg may oversee a company with information about more than a billion people worldwide, but when it comes his own life, privacy is paramount.

According to property records uncovered by the San Jose Mercury News and confirmed by Trulia, the Facebook CEO spent $30 million over the last 10 months to buy three of his neighbors’ homes.

With a $19 billion dollar net worth, the collective $30 million was just a drop in the bucket for Zuckerberg, who doesn’t intend to raze the homes adjacent to the one he paid $7 million for in March 2011 and build a massive compound. Instead, he’s taken ownership of three properties and will simply rent the homes back to the current residents.

Word is that the deals started to go down when Zuckerberg caught wind that a developer planned to buy a neighboring home and charge a premium for the home by marketing it as being “next to Mark Zuckerberg.” To squash that deal, Mark simply bought the house instead.

Zuckerberg’s recently-revealed purchases not only stopped that one slimy developer from profiting from being Zuckerberg-adjacent, but it also ensured that Mark and his wife Priscilla Chan won’t face that issue again. For one particular property, Zuckerberg had to really pony up, likely because the seller didn’t want to sell or knew Mark was motivated and had the funds. He paid $14.5 million for a home with a market value of about $3.2 million dollars.

The properties are all held in generically-named LLCs tied back to Zuckerberg’s money manager at Iconiq capital.

Zuckerberg also owns a home in San Francisco that is currently undergoing extensive upgrades.

Images via Google.