We all dream of having more money than we could ever spend. It must be great to never
have to worry about your spending. But, have you ever noticed that many billionaires are,
well, really pretty weird? Seriously, a whole lot of the world's richest people spend their
time doing things no normal person would even think of. Sure, we can't know for certain if
they were always like that - they might have been weirdos from birth. Or, maybe they're there
to show us that having too much money makes you go a little crazy. We'll never know the cause,
but these filthy rich people definitely aren't normal. In this video, we will count down some of
the most bizarre billionaires who have ever lived. Keep watching to the end - I guarantee you don't
want to miss any of this. Let's get to it...
14. Prince Alwaleed
These days, royalty seems like something from an ancient past, and Prince Alaweed is here to
show us why we feel that way. As Saudi royalty, he was born filthy rich, but he made a couple
clever investments along the way to make himself even richer. He's now worth about $20 billion,
which seems impossible, but you've probably already guessed he spends that money on something
crazy. It's dwarfs. Prince Alwaleed seems to think being small is the funniest thing on earth,
so he hires people with dwarfism to entertain him. On a good day, they have to behave like
court jesters - like royalty used to enjoy in the middle ages. But he can be pretty cruel. He
also hosts competitions to see who can throw his dwarfs the furthest, and he thinks that's okay
because he provides a pillow for them to land on. He's also allegedly thrown money into a fire
and made the dwarfs pull it out before it burns, even if it meant they burned themselves doing it.
Yes, it's as terrible as it sounds. 13. Ingvar Kamprad
There are billionaires like Sheikh Hamad who spend loads of money on useless things. Then there are
billionaires like Ingvar Kamprad. He made his fortune by starting IKEA at the age of just 17!
But that must be the age he's still at in his head because he's as tight-fisted with his money
as your average poor student. He's well known for staying at budget hotels, flying in economy class,
and using the subway. He does have a car, but it's a pretty old Volvo - no flashy sports cars
like you see other billionaires driving. But his obsession with saving money gets worse.
According to one documentary, he only buys his clothes from flea markets. He even waits
until he's visiting an underdeveloped country to have his hair cut because they charge less.
He won't take anything from a minibar in a hotel. And he's even been known to steal salt and pepper
packets from restaurants. Plus, he recycles tea bags, which seems like an insane thing to do if
you're worth several billion dollars. You should keep an eye out just after the holidays - you'll
probably spot him buying presents at the post-Christmas sales. And no, that's not a joke.
12. John Fredriksen You might not expect someone who
works in the pretty boring shipping industry to be eccentric. But John Fredriksen, aka the "Viking
King," will surprise you. Not only has he narrowly avoided serious conflict between himself and the
entire country of Iran. He has some pretty strange approaches to business, often making make-or-break
decisions only on gut instinct, no deep analysis or a team of advisors looking for the possible
pitfalls, it's all about his gut feeling for him. He also hates computers. Instead, he stores
tons of paper documents on his companies in a collection of 19 suitcases. It seems to work for
him - he was, for a time, the richest person in Norway until he fled the country for tax reasons.
11. Salvatore Cerreto I should mention that Salvatore
Cerreto is technically only a multi-millionaire property owner, not a billionaire. But this story
is so weird I just couldn't leave it out of the list. A couple years ago, several businesses in
one Australian town were having problems with someone pooping on their doorsteps. Finally,
a restaurant owner installed surveillance cameras to catch the culprit. But they were shocked to
discover that the culprit was Cerreto. Why would a multi-millionaire spend his time
doing his business in front of other people's businesses? He claims he had a good reason
but never said what it was. 10. Stewart Rahr
Stewart Rahr has proclaimed himself to be the "Number One King of All Fun," which gives you
a pretty good idea of what he's like. This pharmaceutical billionaire in his 70s is well
known for sending out email blasts featuring photos of himself partying with naked women
to his huge list of influential contacts. It also seems like some of those photos feature
a naked Rahr too. In 2010, he got himself banned from the popular sushi chain Nobu.
Then, within just 10 days, he allegedly pulled a gun on an elevator operator in Trump Tower.
He was sent to a psychiatric hospital as a result. He's also known for his generous philanthropy,
so it's not all bad. 9. Ion Tiriac
Ion Tiriac is a special brand of billionaire. He started out as a professional tennis star,
winning the prestigious French Open in 1970 and an Olympic ice hockey star, which is pretty rare.
He made most of his fortune by opening the first bank in Romania after the end of Communism. He's
also involved in retail, insurance, cars, airlines, and tennis player management.
He's earned himself nicknames like "Count Dracula" by never smiling, and he used to be well known
for eating six steaks, four plates of pasta, and twelve eggs for breakfast! But the New York Times
summed him up best when they said, "this man has been to places most people do not imagine exist."
8. Ivan Chrenko Ivan Chrenko might be the world's
weirdest billionaire. But we'll never know because nobody gets to talk to him.
Even when he made the Forbes list of billionaires, he declined to talk about himself. Incredibly,
we almost don't even know what he looks like - there's only one photo of him online. Basically,
unless you want to get involved in a very expensive real-estate deal, you'll never get to
talk to him. Makes you wonder if he even exists. Think it doesn't get any weirder than that? You're
so wrong. Keep watching and you'll see. 7. Clive Palmer
Clive Palmer made his fortune off coal and iron ore. But the way he made his money isn't his
eccentric side - for that, you need to look at what he's spending it on. You won't believe it,
but his expenses basically boil down to two things: a new Titanic and dinosaurs.
You heard right - I said dinosaurs. In 2013, he opened Palmersaurus park, which is exactly what
it sounds like - a park filled with animatronic dinosaurs. Don't bother checking it out, though:
he charges over $100 for a family of 5 to get in. The neighbors aren't too happy about it
either - apparently, they can't sleep because the dinos roar constantly. As for his Titanic dream,
he planned to build Titanic II and actually sail it. When asked why he basically answered, "Because
I can." But he hasn't - it was meant to be completed by 2018 but still hasn't materialized,
which might be a good thing. 6. Nicolas Berggruen
You've heard of people having to sleep in their cars, but I'll bet you've never heard of someone
homeless sleeping in their private jet. But that's exactly what Nicolas Berggruen did.
Nicolas is the son of Heinz Berggruen, the famous art collector and one-time lover of Frida Khalo!
Nicolas invested some of his dad's money to make his fortune, but one day he decided he didn't like
having so much stuff, and he simply sold it all. Including his houses. He lived as a nomad, hopping
from one 5-star hotel to the other and sleeping in his jet. The weirdness doesn't stop there, though.
This philosophy seems to go back a long way. At the age of 15, he wrote up a constitution for a
working utopian society. Today, he invests loads of money into strange think tanks to try to fix
the broken system of governance. He did finally buy a $40 million California house in 2017.
5. Robert Klark Graham
Robert Klark Graham is the failed mad scientist of billionaires. Amazingly, he somehow made his
fortune by inventing shatterproof lenses for eyeglasses. But then he did something insane.
He decided to start a sperm bank that would hopefully create super-genius babies. How? Well,
by only stocking sperm from Nobel laureates. Unfortunately, he hadn't considered that most
Nobel prize winners are pretty old, so they're not the best candidates for donating sperm.
When he realized that, he quickly switched to hunting down ordinary geniuses that had nothing
to do with Nobel Prizes. Still, the company didn't survive very long. They did produce 217 children,
and some have come forward now that they're adults. They want everyone to know that they
don't believe genetics have much to do with their intelligence. Instead,
they're giving credit to their parents for raising them well, which must really annoy Graham.
4. Sheikh Hamad bin Hamdan al Nahyan Sheikh Hamad bin Hamdan al Nahyan is a member
of Abu Dhabi's royal family, so you just know he's so wealthy that it's hard to spend it all. But a
couple years ago, he hit on the perfect idea to blow his money on. He bought himself a private
island and hired people to write his name in the sand so it could be seen from space. The letters
were half a mile high in the end, and now all the aliens know the name HAMAD. I'm just guessing
that's why he did it, or why else would you spend that much money on a project like that?
What's the weirdest thing you would spend your billions on? Let us know in the comments!
Moving on... 3. Richard Branson
Even though Richard Branson is probably the most famous billionaire on this list, he seems pretty
normal, right? Well, yes and no. Most of the time, the owner of Virgin just quietly does his thing.
The weirdest thing about him seems to be that he likes setting demanding physical tasks for
himself, which isn't something you often see lazy billionaires like doing. But, there is one
other thing... he seems to be really into playing dress-up. Alright, to be completely fair to him,
that time he was photographed dressed as a mermaid was to help raise awareness for World Oceans Day.
But that doesn't help explain the times he dressed up as a bride, or the time he dressed
up as a flight attendant, or the time when he was a pirate, or the Easter Bunny costume... yeah, I
guess he's not as normal as we thought. But, then again, if we had that kind of money, we'd probably
also want to live every day like it's Halloween. 2. Mark Zuckerberg
Another super-famous billionaire of our times, Mark Zuckerberg, is nothing like the seemingly
calm Branson. Everyone on earth knows Zuckerberg is weird. Despite being worth about $72 billion,
Zuckerberg presents himself as an anti-billionaire. He once even did a
presentation titled "The Top 10 Reasons Why You Should Not Invest" to a group of investors while
wearing his pajamas. He's also absolutely obsessed with smoked meat, as the thousands of memes on
social media will prove. In fact, meat is one of his main personality traits. He made headlines a
couple years ago when he publicly stated that he only eats meat if he killed the animal himself.
He's had more than his fair share of attention from internet communities for his weird behavior,
like when he was filmed wearing ear protectors while practicing the notably silent sport of
spear throwing. Or the time he thought he could disguise himself with sunscreen while surfing on
a $10,000 board. We also all know he always wears the same informal clothes, no matter the occasion,
and never changes his hairstyle. It's no wonder he wants everyone to join the metaverse - he
just wants us all to be more like him. And finally, the weirdest billionaire
of all time... 1. Howard Hughes
If you think it can't get any weirder than what you've heard, strap in. I'm going to introduce
you to Howard Hughes, possibly the most eccentric billionaire of all time. There isn't enough space
in one list to tell you all about how weird Hughes was, but I'll try. You'll already know
Hughes - he's one of the most famous Hollywood directors of all time. He's also the creator
of the Spruce Goose plane, which led to him being portrayed by Leonardo DiCaprio in Scorsese's film
The Aviator. Hughes' films are noteworthy for so many reasons. He made the first-ever film with
synchronized sound. He accidentally caused the deaths of several people while filming. He even
made what was then the most expensive film ever produced in Hollywood. He really loved planes,
even setting an around-the-world flight record in 1935. In fact, he even died on one
of his private jets, which more than proves his commitment to aviation. But before that happened,
he was busy doing some really odd things, and they weren't just on his own time. During the Cold War,
it was revealed that he was part of a CIA plot to uncover a Soviet submarine that suddenly sank
in the Pacific Ocean while transporting several armed nuclear missiles. With Hughes' approval,
the CIA claimed that the huge vessel they'd pulled up from the ocean floor was part of a
new invention Hughes was using to mine minerals from the ocean floor. He was quite happy to be
involved until a burglary took place and documents were leaked to the media that revealed the true
purpose of the submarine. But that wasn't what kicked off his insanity. Two years earlier,
he was living on the top floor of a Las Vegas hotel when he was asked to leave by staff because
he was always behaving so strangely. Instead of accepting their request as anyone else would,
he simply bought the entire hotel. A few years later, when he was living as a hermit in that
hotel room, he got annoyed because no TV channels played movies in the middle of the night. So,
he bought his own TV station to ensure he always had something to watch. By the way, he was living
like a hermit at the time because of his phobia of germs. Experts think his fear started in childhood
thanks to his mother's fear of him contracting polio. He used to burn his clothes if he thought
someone near him might be sick and spent most of his time closed off in that hotel room with tissue
boxes on his feet because he thought they'd keep the germs off him. All this while never brushing
his teeth or bathing. That's a sure sign of a real eccentric, in my opinion. His estate is worth
$2.5 billion - or about $11 billion today if you adjust for inflation. But even though he died way
back in 1976 and all that money is just sitting there, people are still trying to hunt down his
last will and testament. A couple documents have surfaced and been dismissed, but one which could
possibly be his true will is just as weird as you'd expect. It entitles a gas station
attendant to one-sixteenth of his estate because he gave him a ride a couple of years earlier. Yep,
sounds like something Hughes would do. REFERENCES:
https://luxatic.com/10-eccentric-billionaires-world/#5_Mark_Zuckerberg
https://www.grunge.com/94769/billionaires-actually-really-weird-people/
https://www.workandmoney.com/s/worlds-most-unusual-billionaires-fac696830f5b4955
https://www.history.com/news/7-things-you-may-not-know-about-howard-hughes
https://www.celebritynetworth.com/articles/billionaire-news/howard-hughes-once-gave-a-stranger-150-million-in-exchange-for-a-ride-to-vegas-sort-of/
https://luxurylaunches.com/celebrities/worth-122-billion-here-is-why-mark-zuckerberg-is-way-beyond-eccentric-and-is-actually-the-weirdest-billionaire-of-our-times.php