LEI OFF, ZUCK!
Petition slams Facebook CEO, sez stop colonizing Hawaii
A new online petition criticizing billionaire Mark Zuckerberg’s alleged “colonizing” of Kauai, Hawaii, topped 400,000 signatures Friday as a spokesman for the Facebook CEO called its premise “false.”
The Change.org petition started six days ago accuses Zuckerberg of “suing Native Hawaiians in Kauai for their land so he can build a mansion.”
“Hawaiians are already mistreated enough as is. We need to let them have this. Their land is important to them. He’s building a mansion to what? Live in Kauai for two months out of the year? This is inhuman. It is sick. He needs to be stopped,” it reads.
“This is greedy. He has 10 homes already. INCLUDING surrounding properties to insure his privacy. He has enough. Like this is ridiculous,” the petition claims.
Zuckerberg, 36, and wife Priscilla Chan, reportedly paid more than $100 million to buy two adjacent properties and created a 700-acre estate on Kauai’s North Shore in 2014, Forbes previously reported.
“The premise of this petition is false,” a spokesperson from the Chan Zuckerberg family office said in an email statement to the Daily News on Friday.
“Mark is not suing native Hawaiians and no one has been forced off of the land. At the beginning of 2017, Mark withdrew as a plaintiff from the process to clear title on the land he purchased in Kauai. Before Mark acquired the land, it was set to be subdivided by a commercial developer and built into 80 homes,” the statement said.
“Instead, the property is being used as a working ranch and family retreat, designed in partnership with local families and experts to help create and maintain sustainable agriculture activities while preserving its natural beauty and protecting native wildlife,” the statement said.
“Portions of the land are leased to local farmers and other portions are set aside as protective areas for endangered native species. The buildings on the land will cover about 1 percent of the land or less,” it said.
The spokesman said that beyond the family ranch, the Zuckerbergs “have made commitments to Kauai charitable organizations that help to improve the island’s education and health care systems, promote conservation and help to promote efforts to recover from flooding and COVID-19.”