A viral video showcasing Mark Zuckerberg's $300 million, 387-foot superyacht Launchpad cruising the seas has ignited a fierce online backlash, with critics branding the Meta CEO a climate hypocrite for embracing a high-emission luxury amid his vocal advocacy for sustainability. The footage, which surfaced widely on social media platforms in early December 2025, depicts the sleek Feadship-built vessel gliding alongside its 220-foot support ship Wingman, equipped with helicopters, tenders, and even a mini-submarine. Powered by four massive MTU diesel engines capable of propelling it to 21 knots over 6,000 nautical miles, Launchpad has become a lightning rod for accusations of elite double standards, especially as 2025 is projected to be the second-hottest year on record.
Zuckerberg, whose net worth exceeds $230 billion, has long positioned himself as a climate champion, pledging in 2017 that combating global warming demands "global cooperation" and committing Meta to net-zero emissions by 2030 through over $100 million in philanthropic funding for green initiatives. Yet, reports reveal Launchpad's voracious fuel consumption: over 528,000 gallons of diesel burned between 2024 and 2025, spewing more than 5,300 tons of CO₂—equivalent to the annual output of 400 average U.S. households or the emissions of 630 cars per hour at sea. Detractors, including X user @redpillb0t, lambasted the purchase as proof that "Net Zero is only for the peasants," while @GoingParabolic dubbed it "elite excess," amplifying a chorus of frustration over billionaires' outsized environmental footprints.
The controversy echoes earlier flare-ups, such as when Launchpad docked for repairs at France's La Ciotat shipyard in August 2025, belching black smoke along the Riviera and drawing local ire, or its 2025 Arctic voyage to Norway's Svalbard—where the region warms four times faster than the global average—prompting protests from Arctic Climate Action Svalbard for polluting fragile ecosystems. Activists highlighted the yacht's deactivation of AIS transponders to evade tracking, likening it to a "cloaking device" for the ultra-wealthy, and tied the outrage to broader grievances, including Meta's data privacy practices and the irony of free social media subsidized by user surveillance.
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As the phrase "Net zero for thee, but not for me" proliferates in online discourse, Zuckerberg's yacht saga underscores escalating scrutiny on how the world's richest individuals reconcile personal extravagance with planetary imperatives. With superyacht emissions rivaling small nations' and global calls for billionaire accountability intensifying, the episode renews demands for carbon taxes on luxury assets and transparent offsetting, questioning whether tech titans' green rhetoric can withstand the scrutiny of their seafaring indulgences.
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