First published May 2, 2021.
In April 2021, Mark Zuckerberg and Priscilla Chan paid about $53 million for roughly 600 acres (597 acres, according to the Honolulu Star-Advertiser) on the north shore of Kauai, Hawaii. The land joined the roughly 700 acres they had bought in 2014, creating a single estate now known as Ko‘olau Ranch. Headlines at the time often described the new tract as 700 acres or said they now owned 1,300 acres, which mixed up the two purchases.
The deal drew attention because the couple's first purchase on Kauai had led to one of the most criticised episodes of Zuckerberg's public life: lawsuits that could have forced Native Hawaiian families to sell small ancestral plots inside his estate. Here is what was bought, what the dispute was about, and what happened next.
What the 2021 purchase included
The land is the mountain-to-sea division of Lepeuli, an ahupua‘a in traditional Hawaiian land terms, running from the uplands down to the coast at Larsen's Beach. It includes historical sites, native plants and birds, and coastal habitat, and most of it was leased to a cattle business, Paradise Ranch.
The seller was Waioli Corporation, a nonprofit set up by descendants of the Wilcox family, whose Grove Farm sugar company once dominated large parts of Kauai. Waioli said it trusted the couple to be responsible stewards of Lepeuli. Zuckerberg said in a statement that the couple were "committed to honouring the current ranching lease to Paradise Ranch" and to keeping the land's agricultural dedication.
The first purchase and the quiet title lawsuits
The 2014 purchase of about 700 acres in the Pilaa area cost a reported $100 million. Inside that land lay a number of small parcels, often called kuleana lands, which had been granted to Native Hawaiian families in the 19th century. Over generations, ownership of such plots was passed down informally and divided among many descendants, some of whom no longer knew they held a share.
At the end of 2016, companies controlled by Zuckerberg filed "quiet title" lawsuits, a legal procedure used in Hawaii to establish who owns land with unclear title. The process can end in a court-ordered auction, which meant hundreds of descendants could have lost their small interests. When the lawsuits became public in January 2017, they provoked anger in Hawaii and beyond.
A common misreading is that these families had no legal claim because they lacked formal deeds. In fact, the point of a quiet title case is to sort out legitimate but fragmented ownership. The families were heirs, not squatters, and the land was not their homes in most cases: the parcels were small and largely uninhabited, which is why critics focused on the cultural loss rather than physical evictions.
Kapua Sproat, a law professor at the University of Hawaii who grew up on Kauai, put it bluntly at the time: "This is the face of neocolonialism." She explained that for Native Hawaiians, land is an ancestor, adding: "You just don't sell your grandmother."
The apology and the auction that followed
Within weeks, Zuckerberg withdrew as a plaintiff. He wrote that he had not understood the history of Hawaiian land ownership and said he regretted not taking more time to learn it. That retreat was widely reported as the end of the story, but it was not quite.
According to the Honolulu Star-Advertiser, a local resident with family ties to the land later continued a forced auction in cooperation with Zuckerberg, and about 2 acres inside the estate were acquired that way. Separately, the couple built high rock walls along the property that blocked ocean views from the main road, and some beachgoers complained of harassment by security staff.
Later expansion of the estate
In November 2021 the couple bought another 110 acres upstream for $17 million. That parcel included the Ka Loko reservoir, whose dam failed in March 2006, releasing a flood that killed seven people downstream. With that purchase the estate reached roughly 1,500 acres, and later reporting put total spending on the planned ranch and compound well above $145 million.
Zuckerberg has since described raising Wagyu and Angus cattle on the ranch, and has said the cattle are fed partly on beer.
Gifts to the island and the wider debate
In 2021 the couple gave $4.2 million to a jobs programme for Kauai residents who lost work in the pandemic, and $4.85 million in grants to Kauai Habitat for Humanity for affordable housing in Waimea, Anahola and Waipouli.
Supporters point to conservation of large tracts that might otherwise be developed, and to the money invested in the island. Critics say the estate is part of a broader pattern in which wealthy outsiders buy up land in Hawaii, pushing up prices in a state where many Native Hawaiians and local families struggle to afford homes. Both views help explain why a single property deal on a rural island became international news.
For readers trying to make sense of similar stories, it helps to separate three questions: whether a purchase was legal, whether it respected the people and history connected to the land, and what the owner does with it over time. In Kauai, the answers have been debated for nearly a decade.
Key facts at a glance
- 2014: about 700 acres in Pilaa bought for a reported $100 million.
- Late 2016 to January 2017: quiet title lawsuits filed, then withdrawn after public criticism.
- April 2021: about 600 acres of Lepeuli bought from Waioli Corporation for $53 million.
- November 2021: 110 acres including the Ka Loko reservoir bought for $17 million.
- Estate today: roughly 1,500 acres, known as Ko‘olau Ranch.
Sources: Honolulu Star-Advertiser on the Lepeuli purchase; Honolulu Star-Advertiser on the estate's growth; Wikipedia: Mark Zuckerberg. Original reporting by The Independent and The Guardian (Sproat quote).
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