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See the largest yachts owned by tech billionaires, from Sergey Brin's new Dragonfly to Jeff Bezos's Koru

7 August 2025 at 15:14
Mark Zuckerberg/Launchpad yacht
Mark Zuckerberg's Launchpad, which set sail in 2024, cost nine figures and is one of the largest superyachts owned by a tech billionaire.

Chris Unger/Zuffa LLC via Getty Images; Ruben Griffeon/SuperYacht Times

  • As the rich get richer, their yachts get longer … and when it comes to boats, the bigger the better.
  • Sergey Brin, Jeff Bezos, and Mark Zuckerberg have spent nine figures on megayachts in recent years.
  • These are the biggest yachts owned by tech billionaires.

If you are a billionaire, you're going to need a bigger boat — or at least want a bigger boat.

Superyachts are an increasingly requisite status symbol for billionaires, providing highly secluded leisure and networking sites. They are — more so than real estate — the single most expensive asset you can own.

"It's a bit of a celebration of your success in life, of wealth," Giovanna Vitelli, the chair of the Azimut Benetti Group, one of the biggest producers of superyachts, told Business Insider.

As a marker of wealth, unofficial yachting rules say the bigger the richer. A 50-meter vessel is likely to be owned by a billionaire. Over 100 meters long? The owner probably has at least a couple of billion.

The richest tech billionaires, like Jeff Bezos, Mark Zuckerberg, and Oracle cofounder Larry Ellison, have gone bigger. Their palaces at sea are decked out with amenities like gyms, spas, pools, nightclubs, and movie theaters. Chartering a yacht of this size for a week typically costs upward of $1 million.

A look at these megayachts — broadly defined as over 70 meters long, mostly custom-built, and often costing nine figures — offers a glimpse into how the world's richest live.

Here are the largest yachts owned by tech billionaires — or at least those we know about.

In an industry ruled by discretion, deciphering who owns what is an exercise in stringing together many clues. There are likely yachts that have not been publicly recorded or registered. Evan Spiegel, for example, is rumored to own the 94-meter megayacht Bliss. Sometimes, it seems, money can buy privacy.

Sergey Brin: Dragonfly
Butterfly, a yacht owned by Sergey Brin
Butterfly, owned by Sergey Brin, is the smaller of his two yachts.

Insider

Google cofounder Sergey Brin has a flotilla of yachts, boats, and water toys known as the "Fly Fleet." The latest addition is his largest vessel yet.

At 142 meters long, Dragonfly was delivered in December 2024.

Built by the prestigious German shipyard Lürssen, Dragonfly has been lauded for its design, which earned it the 2025 Yacht Style award in its length class.

It comes equipped with a full suite of amenities, including a glass-bottomed pool, cinema, spa, gym, business deck with a home office, and a helicopter hangar.

The superyacht is Brin's second of the same name. The former Dragonfly was about half the length of the new one, at 73 meters long. It was listed for sale last year with an asking price of $30 million. It has since been renamed Capricorn.

Brin's fleet also includes Butterfly, a 38-meter-long yacht. Often moored in the Bay Area, its crew members spend their downtime kitesurfing and teaching swimming lessons to local kids.

The rest of the armada, which requires a team of 50 full-time employees, consists of a smaller boat named Firefly, Jet Skis, foil boards, dinghies, and kiteboards.

Jeff Bezos: Koru and Abeona
PORTOFINO, ITALY - JUNE 13: Koru and Abeona, Jeff Bezos yachts are seen on June 13, 2023 in Portofino, Italy.
Jeff Bezos and his fiancée, Lauren Sanchez spent last summer on Koru, seen at left, with her support vessel, Abeona, seen at right.

Robino Salvatore/GC Images

Bezos' $500 million megayacht, the 127-meter Koru, made a splash when it was delivered in 2023.

The sailing yacht is hard to miss thanks to its massive size and unique design. It also travels with Abeona, its 75-meter support vessel, in tow.

"I heard back in 2018 or something that somebody had ordered a classic sailing yacht," one superyacht aficionado told Business Insider. "You order 125 meters, that's not really going to be classic. But it is. I think it's pretty cool."

The yacht has hosted several of Bezos and Lauren Sánchez Bezos' famous friends for various occasions, including an engagement party that drew Bill Gates and Leonardo DiCaprio on board and a pre-wedding foam party to celebrate Sánchez Bezos' son's birthday.

Before its completion, Koru made headlines for drawing the ire of some Dutch people, who vowed to hurl eggs at it after it was announced that a historic bridge in Rotterdam might be taken apart to allow the Oceanco-built boat through. (The shipyard made alternative plans, and an egg crisis was averted.)

The yacht has since been criticized for the liberal use of teak on its decks and interiors. The wood has gained a reputation for its connection to Myanmar, a country with a checkered human rights record.

In 2024, Oceanco was fined for violating the European Timber Regulation and not properly tracing the teak used to craft some of Koru's furniture and interiors.

"Oceanco deeply regrets these oversights," and never intended to violate the regulations, a company spokesperson said in a statement to Business Insider. "We have enhanced our due diligence processes to ensure this does not occur again."

Mark Zuckerberg: Launchpad
Launchpad Yacht
Mark Zuckerberg's Launchpad is among the largest superyachts owned by techbillionaires.

Ruben Griffioen/SuperYachtTimes

Following months of rumors, Zuckerberg debuted Launchpad in 2024. The 118-meter superyacht was originally designed for a sanctioned Russian businessman.

The ship made its maiden voyage in March 2024, going from Gibraltar to St. Maarten and mooring in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. It has since visited Panama for Zuckerberg's 40th birthday and spent summers in the Mediterranean.

Little is known about its interior, but photos show a large swimming pool and helipad, and its shipyard, Feadship, has written about its "fully enclosed pod-like observation lounge" and two helipads.

Its price has been kept under wraps, but a yacht of that size would typically cost nine figures.

Eric Schmidt: Whisper
The yacht "Kismet" is located in central London on the banks of the Thames. The yacht is adorned with a sculpture of a jaguar on the bow. Photo: Jan Woitas/dpa (Photo by Jan Woitas/picture alliance via Getty Images)
Eric Schmidt bought Kismet from the Jacksonville Jaguars owner Shahid Khan — hence the figurehead — last year and renamed her Whisper.

Jan Woitas/picture alliance via Getty Images

Former Google CEO Eric Schmidt purchased Kismet, a 95-meter-long superyacht formerly owned by the Jacksonville Jaguars' billionaire owner Shahid Khan, in 2023, and renamed the Lürssen-built vessel Whisper.

He'd originally agreed to purchase the Alfa Nero, the yacht of a sanctioned Russian oligarch, for $67 million in an auction conducted by Antigua and Barbuda. But he backed out of the deal following legal issues over its true ownership.

The ship can accommodate 12 guests and a crew of 28, according to Moran Yacht & Ship, which oversaw its construction. It features a master deck with a private jacuzzi, full-service spa, lap pool, movie theater, and outdoor fireplace.

While its final sale price was not public, it was listed for 149 million euros, or about $158 million at the time of the sale.

Schmidt charters the yacht for about $1.4 million a week — an opportunity his fellow billionaire, Magic Johnson, has taken advantage of. In the summer of 2025, he posted videos and photos from a weekslong Mediterranean vacation aboard Whisper, including workouts in the outdoor gym and a toga party with the crew.

Barry Diller: Eos
Eos yacht
Barry Diller and Diane von Furstenberg's Eos yacht has become a popular destination for celebrities.

Horacio Villalobos / Getty Images

Billionaire Barry Diller, the chairman of digital media company IAC, co-owns the megayacht Eos with his wife, fashion designer Diane von Furstenberg, who is immortalized by a figurehead sculpture by Anh Duong.

One of the largest private sailing yachts in the world, the three-masted Lürssen schooner measures 93 meters long. It took three years to build before being delivered to Diller in 2009, and little has been revealed about its interior and features since then.

The power couple has hosted many celebrities on the Eos, which spends its summers crisscrossing the Mediterranean and New Year's Eve in St. Barts. Over the years, guests have included Oprah Winfrey, Emma Thompson, Anderson Cooper, and Bezos, leading some to believe it provided inspiration for his Koru.

Jim Clark: Athena
Athena yacht
Netscape founder Jim Clark has listed Athena for sale but is yet to find a buyer.

Burgess

Netscape founder Jim Clark purchased the 90-meter sailing yacht Athena in 2004.

"I could easily have built a 50- or 60-meter motor yacht that would have had the same space as Athena, but I was never really interested in building a motor yacht," he told Boat International in 2016. "To my eye, she's one of the most gorgeous large sailing yachts, maybe the most gorgeous large sailing yacht in the world."

Athena has room for 10 guests and 21 crew members.

"If I was forced to change something, I would convert the office on the lower deck into a children's room," he said.

The former Stanford professor tried to sell it at various points — listing it for $95 million in 2012, $69 million in 2016, and $59 million in 2017 — but it has yet to change hands.

Larry Ellison: Musashi
Super Yacht Musashi owned by Oracle CEO Larry Ellison
The Mushashi superyacht, seen here in Venice, is owned by Oracle CEO Larry Ellison.

Marco Secchi/Corbis via Getty Images

Oracle founder Larry Ellison has owned several superyachts over the years, including the Katana, the Ronin, and the Rising Sun, which he sold to fellow billionaire David Geffen.

He purchased his current boat, Musashi, in 2011 for a reported $160 million from custom-yacht giant Feadship.

Named after a famous samurai warrior, the 88-meter-long yacht has both Japanese and Art Deco-inspired design elements. It also boasts amenities such as an elevator, swimming pool, beauty salon, gym, and basketball court.

Ellison is known for his extravagant spending — private islands, jets, a tennis tournament — and yachting is among his favorite and most expensive hobbies. He took up racing them in the 1990s and financed the America's Cup-winning BMW Oracle Racing team.

Laurene Powell Jobs: Venus
A superyacht at sea.
Venus was originally designed for Steve Jobs, though he never stepped foot on her.

Valery Hache/AFP via Getty Images

Steve Jobs' widow, investor and philanthropist Laurene Powell Jobs, inherited a nearly finished 78-meter yacht named Venus when the Apple cofounder died in 2011.

After spending years vacationing on Ellison's yachts — Venus and Musashi come from the same shipyard, Feadship — Jobs wanted one for himself. He designed Venus with French starchitect and decorator Philippe Starck, and it was worth $130 million at completion.

"Venus comes from the philosophy of minimum," Starck said of its design. "The elegance of the minimum, approaching dematerialization."

Jobs and Starck began working together in 2007, the designer told Vanity Fair, and held monthly meetings over four years. Venus was delivered in 2012 to Jobs' specification: six identical cabins, a design to ensure spaces of absolute silence, and the most up-to-date technology.

"There will never again be a boat of that quality again. Because never again will two madmen come together to accomplish such a task," Starck told the magazine. "It was not a yacht that Steve and I were constructing, we were embarked on a philosophical action, implemented according to a quasi-religious process. We formed a single brain with four lobes."

Charles Simonyi: Norn
harles Simonyis luxury yacht 'Skat' sits in the harbour on November 21, 2008 in Gothenburg, Sweden.
Early Microsoft employee Charles Simonyi traded in his first yacht Skat, pictured here, for the bigger Norn.

Christopher Hunt/Getty Images

Early Microsoft employee Charles Simonyi has purchased two megayachts from the German shipyard Lürssen: the 90-meter Norn and 71-meter Skat.

Delivered in 2023, Norn is full of luxe features, including an outdoor cinema and a pool floor that lifts to become a light-up dancefloor. It shares a militaristic style with Skat, which Simonyi sold in 2021 after listing it for 56.5 million euros.

"The yacht is to be home away from my home in Seattle, and its style should match the style of the house, adapted for the practicalities of the sea," Simonyi once said of Skat.

Sindhu Sundar contributed to an earlier version of this story.

Correction: May 6, 2024 — An earlier version of this story misstated Giovanna Vitelli's title. She is the chair of the Azimut Benetti Group, not a vice president.

Read the original article on Business Insider

The US seized a Russian oligarch's 348-foot, $325 million superyacht — and now it's up for grabs

6 August 2025 at 05:20
The yacht Amadea
The Amadea, a megayacht seized from a Russian oligarch, cost nearly $1 million a month to maintain.

Eugene Tanner/AFP via Getty Images

  • The $325 million yacht of Russian oligarch Suleiman Kerimov is now on sale.
  • The six-deck, 348-foot-long superyacht was made in 2017 and seized by the US government in 2022.
  • It will be sold by sealed auction on September 10. Interested buyers must pay a 10 million euro deposit.

A $325 million yacht that belonged to a Russian oligarch is now up for grabs.

The US government is auctioning off the Amadea, a 348-foot-long superyacht seized from sanctioned billionaire Suleiman Kerimov in 2022.

The yacht, built in 2017 by the German shipbuilder Lürssen, can accommodate 16 guests in 8 staterooms and 36 crew members.

The yacht offers numerous amenities on its six decks, including a gym, a 32-foot swimming pool, an outdoor jacuzzi, a private cinema, and a helipad.

"This is perhaps the most spectacular, exacting and beautiful ship any of us will ever see," Bob Toney, chairman of National Maritime Services, said in the auction press release on Tuesday. "An opportunity like this for discerning owners is exceedingly rare — maybe once in a lifetime."

The yacht's buyer will be guaranteed a "substantial discount on the original price of the yacht," per information provided by a representative of Fraser Yachts, the luxury yacht broker representing Amadea's sale.

The representative added that the yacht has been "virtually untouched" since it was seized.

The yacht will be sold by sealed bid auction on September 10 to the highest bidder in its berth in San Diego. To be considered for the bid, interested parties must deposit 10 million euros, or $11.6 million.

Per a May 2022 press release by the Department of Justice, the Amadea was seized off the coast of Fiji by the FBI and local law enforcement.

"Last month, I warned that the department had its eyes on every yacht purchased with dirty money," Lisa Monaco, the then-US deputy attorney general, said in the release. "This yacht seizure should tell every corrupt Russian oligarch that they cannot hide — not even in the remotest part of the world."

Representatives for the National Maritime Services and Fraser Yachts did not respond to requests for comment from Business Insider.

Read the original article on Business Insider

Billionaire gaming CEO buys superyacht company that built his and Jeff Bezos' boats

5 August 2025 at 20:28
Gabe Newell, cofounder of Valve
Newell is worth $9.5 billion.

Olly Curtis/Future Publishing via Getty Images

  • Billionaire Gabe Newell bought Oceanco, the Dutch superyacht builder behind Jeff Bezos' Koru.
  • Newell, the cofounder of video game developer Valve, owns at least one Oceanco superyacht.
  • The shipyard is known for building fully customized yachts that cost well into the nine figures.

Some gamers spend weekends on the couch. Others spend them luxuriating in the most expensive assets money can buy.

Gabe Newell, the cofounder of video game developer Valve Corporation, has purchased Oceanco, the Dutch builder behind some of the world's most prominent superyachts.

The amount that Newell, who Forbes reports is worth $9.5 billion, paid for the shipbuilder has not been disclosed. The previous owner, Mohammed Al Barwani, purchased Oceanco in 2010.

Neither Newell nor Oceanco responded to requests for comment from Business Insider.

Newell's Valve is behind some of the most beloved video games, including the "Half-Life" and "Portal" series. It also created Steam, the biggest PC gaming platform, and the handheld PC gaming device Steam Deck.

With Oceanco, he's moving into sun decks and main decks.

The shipyard has built some of the most renowned superyachts and only delivers a couple of fully customized vessels, which cost well into the nine figures, each year.

Its largest build to date is Koru, Jeff Bezos's 127-meter-long sailing yacht, which was delivered in 2023 to much fanfare and has been praised for its aesthetics.

The Koru build had its controversial moments. Oceanco initially requested that a historic bridge be dismantled to deliver the yacht, but then rescinded the request. Separately, the company was fined for failing to properly trace the teak used to craft some of Koru's furniture and interiors.

Alfa Nero in Venice, Italy.
Alfa Nero, which was seized by the U.S. government, is one of Oceanco's most famous builds.

VWPICS/Nano Calvo/Universal Images Group/Getty Images

Oceanco is also behind Alfa Nero, the 82-meter yacht seized from a Russian oligarch in 2023, and Bravo Eugenia, the 109-meter yacht owned by billionaire Jerry Jones.

Newell owns at least one Oceanco design: Draak, a 91.5-meter-long yacht with a helipad, spa, gym, and swimming pool. He is also rumored to be the future owner of Oceanco Y722, a 111-meter project expected to be delivered later this year.

While the prices of Oceanco's new deliveries are largely kept under wraps, the six yachts for sale from the builder range in price from $5.8 million for a 49-meter vessel built in 1995 to $341 million for a 105-meter superyacht built in 2000.

Newell will take a hands-off approach and plans to "leave the team alone," according to a press release from August 1 announcing the acquisition. There is hope, however, that his tech background will influence production.

"What happens when you let yachtbuilders talk to worldbuilders? When craftsmen get access to tech usually reserved for game devs and mad scientists?" the press release says. "You get innovation that doesn't just look good. It feels good."

Read the original article on Business Insider

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