100 Absurd Things Billionaires Bought That'll Make You Question Everything

[00:00:00]What do you do with a billion dollars?

[00:00:02]Apparently, buy a dinosaur, a pet tiger, and a missile-proof yacht. Yes, missile-proof.

[00:00:09]We found 100 of the dumbest purchases in human history. Subscribe to Facto Bia now, it's free, unlike literally everything in this video. Number one.

[00:00:18]So, picture this. An artist named Maurizio Cattelan cast a fully working toilet out of solid 18-karat gold, called it America.

[00:00:27]And rich folks literally lined up to take a seat. One casting ended up at England's Blenheim Palace, where thieves yanked it out in under 5 minutes. A twin later sold for $12.1 million dollars.

[00:00:39]Yep, somebody dropped eight figures on a bathroom throne. Talk about money going straight down the drain. Number two. A Saudi prince named Badr bin Abdullah casually threw down 450 million bucks on Leonardo da Vinci's Salvator Mundi, shattering every art record on the books. Then came the real genius move.

[00:00:58]Instead of tucking the priciest painting on Earth into a climate-controlled museum, he reportedly parked it on a super yacht. Mhm? Nothing pampers a 500-year-old masterpiece quite like salty sea air and a bit of ocean humidity, right? Number three.

[00:01:13]Roman Abramovich wasn't about to settle for some basic boat. His $340 million yacht, the Eclipse, comes loaded with a missile detection system, an armored bedroom, bulletproof windows, and lasers that zap any paparazzi camera daring to point his way. The thing's so massive that it reportedly burns a ton of diesel a day just running the air conditioning.

[00:01:34]A floating fortress for a guy whose scariest enemy is probably a bad headline. Number four. One fine day in 2020, somebody strolled into Christie's and dropped $31.8 million on a dinosaur.

[00:01:47]Stan, a 67-million-year-old T. Rex, and one of the most complete ever dug up, smashed the fossil price record into dust. The mystery buyer turned out to be Abu Dhabi, who planned to stick him in a museum. Still, imagine sitting your accountant down and explaining that little impulse purchase.

[00:02:05]Number five. Dubai property developer Balvinder Sahni really, really loves his vanity plates. We're talking millions on single license plates, including roughly 9 and 1/2 million bucks for the plate AA8 at a charity auction, after already dropping 4.6 million on the plate just called five. Whoa. That's more than most folks' homes, all for a shiny strip of metal to bolt onto a bumper.

[00:02:30]Apparently, bragging rights come with a sticker price. Number six. Here's a meal that costs more than a mansion. An anonymous bidder forked over a jaw-dropping $9 million just to grab lunch with billionaire Warren Buffett, plus basketball stars Stephen and Ayesha Curry in Omaha. Sure, the cash went to charity, but still, that's 9 million for a few hours of small talk and presumably a decent steak.

[00:02:54]Huh, I sure hope somebody showed up hungry for that bill. Number seven. A wealthy Chinese racing fan dropped a record 1.6 million euros, roughly 1.9 million bucks, on a single Belgian pigeon named New Kim back in 2020. Yep, a bird. These things get bred like racehorses and auctioned off like fine art. For nearly $2 million, you'd really, really hope the little guy at least remembers the way back home.

[00:03:19]Otherwise, that's a pricey escape artist. Number eight. When you've got Oracle money, a beachfront mansion starts feeling a little cramped. So, Larry Ellison bought 98% of Lanai, Hawaii's sixth largest island, all 141 square miles of it, for a reported $300 million.

[00:03:38]He basically crowned himself the island's landlord king, then poured tens of millions more into its hotels and theaters.

[00:03:45]Most folks buy a vacation home. This guy just bought the whole darn vacation.

[00:03:50]Number nine. Jeff Bezos looked at his Amazon billions and thought, "You know what the world's really missing? A giant clock." He sunk $42 million into building a monument-sized clock inside a mountain he owns in West Texas, designed to tick just once a year for 10,000 years.

[00:04:07]So long after every one of us is dust, that lonely mountain will keep right on ticking away for absolutely nobody.

[00:04:14]Comforting, huh? Number 10. Beyoncé and Jay-Z were reportedly among the lucky few to snag the Rolls-Royce Boat Tail, a custom cruiser priced around $28 million, making it one of the most expensive new cars ever built. It even folds open into a little champagne bar. For that kind of cash, you could grab a whole fleet of supercars, >> [music] >> but honestly, where's the fun without a built-in cocktail station riding shotgun? Number 11. In Hong Kong, where space is basically gold, a single parking bay at the ultra-exclusive Mount Nicholson sold for a record-smashing $1.3 million. That's right.

[00:04:50]Not an apartment, not a condo, just a concrete rectangle big enough for one car. Ouch.

[00:04:56]Somewhere out there, a guy's parking spot is worth more than entire houses in most countries. And he still probably complains about the commute. Number 12.

[00:05:06]Back in 2013, a Hong Kong businessman reportedly blew around $15 million on a diamond-encrusted iPhone, complete with hundreds of white diamonds and a big fat black diamond slapped on the back. $15 million bucks for a phone that still drops calls and dies by 3:00 in the afternoon, just like everybody else's.

[00:05:26]Sadly, all those sparkly rocks didn't squeeze out a single extra minute of battery life. Number 13. Apparently, the ultra-rich don't sleep so well at night.

[00:05:35]Tech moguls like Mark Zuckerberg and Sam Altman have been quietly digging fortified underground shelters in case civilization decides to call it quits.

[00:05:43]Zuckerberg's Hawaii compound reportedly hides a 5,000 square foot bunker with blast proof doors, though he swears up and down it's not a bunker.

[00:05:53]Sure thing, buddy. Nothing the least bit suspicious about the billionaire with the secret blast door. Number 14, before he was a podcast host, Mike Tyson reportedly dropped around $70,000 on a white Bengal tiger, then poured way more into handlers, training, >> [music] >> and feeding the giant cat. At one point, he owned a few of them, basically turning his mansion into a private zoo.

[00:06:16]Because nothing screams solid life decision quite like keeping a 400-lb apex predator lounging in your backyard.

[00:06:24]What could possibly go wrong? Number 15, hmm, this one aged like milk. Crypto guy Sina Estavi paid $2.9 million for a digital token of Jack Dorsey's first ever tweet. The time was classic, "Just setting up my two tier."

[00:06:40]A year later, he tried flipping it, dreaming of 48 million. The top bid, around 208 bucks. He basically bought a screenshot, and the whole internet had quietly stopped pretending it meant anything. Number 16, in early 2022, Justin Bieber dropped about $1.3 million on a board ape token, which is, no joke, a cartoon picture of a monkey. By the very next year, its estimated value had reportedly tanked to around 70 grand.

[00:07:10]Over a million bucks, just gone for a little image that anybody could right click and save for free. Woohoo! Modern art, baby. Bold investment, that one.

[00:07:21]Number 17, one Dubai sheikh apparently decided a regular Lamborghini just wasn't flashy enough, so he had the whole car wrapped in actual gold, a job rumored to run into the millions. Now it blinds every pedestrian within a mile and basically screams, "Please rob me."

[00:07:36]at every red light. But hey, when your biggest worry in life is, "My supercar isn't shiny enough." You've clearly run clean out of real problems.

[00:07:45]>> [music] >> Number 18, for the 2022 Met Gala, Kim Kardashian squeezed into Marilyn Monroe's actual "Happy Birthday, Mr. President" gown from 1962, a priceless, totally irreplaceable piece of history.

[00:07:58]Museum conservators were reportedly speechless.

[00:08:01]And trust me, not in the good way.

[00:08:04]Terrified the fragile old dress might tear.

[00:08:07]She slipped into a replica after the red carpet, but the whole museum world held its breath until then. Number 19, Drake took one look at his jewelry box and decided it was lacking. So, he commissioned a custom chain called "Previous Engagements", reportedly worth around 12 and 1/2 million dollars, sporting 42 diamonds, one for every time he supposedly thought about proposing.

[00:08:29]Yikes. That's a multi-million dollar monument to relationships that never even happened, just dangling right there around his neck.

[00:08:37]Now, that's a heavy load of commitment issues. Number 20, one superyacht simply wasn't enough for Mark Zuckerberg.

[00:08:44]Alongside his giant main vessel, he reportedly added a roughly $100 million support ship nicknamed Wingman.

[00:08:52]Basically, a floating garage for the yacht's helicopter, jet skis, and all the other toys. Just imagine being so loaded that your boat needs its own boat, purely to haul around the stuff that couldn't fit on the first boat.

[00:09:05]Hmm, must be exhausting. Number 21, hedge fund billionaire Ken Griffin clearly refused to lose the dinosaur arms race. He paid a staggering $44.6 million for Apex, a Stegosaurus skeleton, roughly five times what Stan the T. T. Rex went for. He did loan it to a museum afterward, which is genuinely nice of him, but still, that's 44 million bucks dropped on a very, very old, very large pile of bones. Bones.

[00:09:35]Number 22, the dino-buying frenzy refused to stick to just one species. A triceratops fossil nicknamed Trey sold for around five and a half million dollars at auction, joining the growing club of prehistoric skeletons that rich collectors snap up like trading cards.

[00:09:52]Scientists keep begging that these priceless specimens vanish into private living rooms, but apparently a multi-million-dollar conversation piece beats actual research every single time.

[00:10:02]Science loses again. Number 23, sometimes the priciest thing a billionaire buys is just their freedom.

[00:10:09]When Jeff Bezos and MacKenzie Scott split in 2019, she walked away with a staggering 38 billion dollars in Amazon stock, one of the most expensive divorces in human history. That single settlement instantly made her one of the richest women alive. Most divorces squabble over the house and the dog.

[00:10:28]This one carved up a slice of the world's biggest company. Number 24, this one's the dream version of getting rich.

[00:10:35]George Clooney and his buddy Rande Gerber started making tequila, Casamigos, basically because they liked drinking it together on the weekends.

[00:10:43]Then in 2017, beverage giant Diageo bought the whole company for up to 1 billion dollars. Gerber admitted they were kind of shocked. So, yeah, two already rich dudes got way richer because their casual booze hobby turned into a billion-dollar payday. Number 25, remember that $450 million Da Vinci?

[00:11:04]Well, the same Saudi royal circle also reportedly owns the super yacht Serene, picked up for around $565 million, meaning the boat allegedly babysitting the world's priciest painting actually cost more than the painting itself.

[00:11:19]Let that one sink in. The parking spot for the art was the bigger splurge.

[00:11:23]Honestly, wealth just stops making any sense at this level.

[00:11:27]Number 26, you'd figure a watch is just a watch. Yeah, not up at this altitude.

[00:11:32]A one-of-a-kind Patek Philippe Grandmaster Chime sold for a hammer-dropping $31 million at a Geneva charity auction, becoming the most expensive wristwatch ever sold.

[00:11:42]The wild part? It's made of plain old stainless steel. So, somebody paid 31 million bucks for a watch that, materials-wise, is basically a really fancy spoon. Time really is money.

[00:11:55]Number 27. Here's a scam dressed up in a pretty little dream. A man named Dennis Hope decided he owned the moon and started selling 1-acre plots through his Lunar Embassy for around 20 or 30 bucks a pop. Plenty of well-off folks have bought deeds to lunar land they'll never see, touch, or legally own. You do get a nice certificate, though. Turns out he sold a whole lot of imaginary real estate. Number 28. At Salt Bae's restaurants, the famous Golden Tomahawk is a Wagyu steak completely wrapped in 24-karat gold leaf, easily running diners well into four figures a plate.

[00:12:29]Here's the kicker, though. Gold leaf is totally tasteless and has zero texture.

[00:12:34]So, you're literally paying thousands to eat something that adds absolutely nothing to the flavor. Whoa. All it really does is make the meat sparkle on its way down your throat.

[00:12:45]>> [music] >> Number 29. Elon Musk bought all of Twitter back in 2022 for a jaw-dropping $44 billion.

[00:12:52]Then, he turned right around and admitted his investors were, his words, "obviously overpaying."

[00:12:58]Analysts piled on, calling it one of the most overpaid tech deals in history.

[00:13:03]Just imagine dropping 44 billion bucks and then publicly agreeing it was way too much.

[00:13:08]That, my friends, is a level of buyer's remorse the rest of us can't even picture. Number 30. One day in 2019, somebody dropped $91 million on a Jeff Koons sculpture called Rabbit, a shiny stainless steel bunny that looks exactly like a balloon animal from a kid's party. That price tag made it the most expensive work ever sold by a living artist at auction. 91 million bucks for a metal rabbit you can't even cuddle.

[00:13:34]Ugh. Well, at least it never needs feeding or a vet. Number 31, a single bottle of the Macallan 1926, a 60-year-old scotch.

[00:13:44]Sold at Sotheby's for about 2.7 million dollars, making it the priciest bottle of booze ever auctioned. It's one bottle.

[00:13:52]Just one. You could grab a whole little fleet of cars for that kind of cash.

[00:13:57]And here's the cruel part. The second you crack it open for a sip, poof, all that value just evaporates. Number 32, YouTuber Logan Paul turned childhood nostalgia into pure financial madness.

[00:14:10]In 2021, he paid over 5 million bucks for a single graded Pikachu card and actually wore it as a chain to a wrestling match. Then years later, he flipped that same card for a record-shattering 16 and a half million dollars. So, yeah, a piece of cardboard with a cartoon mouse on it now costs more than most folks earn in several lifetimes. Number 33, the De Beers blue diamond sold at Sotheby's for a dazzling 57 and a half million dollars, crowning it the most expensive blue diamond ever sold. It's a single fancy vivid blue stone, smaller than a golf ball, mind you. 57 million bucks for something you could accidentally lose down a sink drain in about 2 seconds flat. Ugh.

[00:14:52]Honestly, just thinking about that gives me a tiny panic attack. Number 34, when Blue Origin auctioned off the very first passenger seat on its New Shepard rocket, an anonymous bidder won it with a jaw-dropping 28 million dollars. The grand prize?

[00:15:08]A few minutes floating in space sitting right next to Jeff Bezos.

[00:15:12]Then the winner mysteriously bailed, blaming scheduling conflicts.

[00:15:17]28 million bucks for the ride of a lifetime and the guy supposedly had a calendar clash. Yeah, sure he did.

[00:15:23]Number 35, when you're the son of Asia's richest man, you don't just throw a wedding, you basically throw an entire economy. The marriage of Anant Ambani and Radhika Merchant in India stretched across months of celebrations with the total spend estimated around $600 million. There were private concerts by global superstars, cruise parties, the works.

[00:15:45]Most folks sweat the catering bill. This family bankrolled what amounted to a small festival. Number 36, mhm, status.

[00:15:54]In 2025, the original Hermes Birkin, the actual bag once carried by Jane Birkin herself, sold at Sotheby's for a staggering $10.1 million, smashing the world record for a handbag.

[00:16:07]$10 million bucks for a purse.

[00:16:10]>> [music] >> You could buy actual houses, as in plural houses, for the price of a thing literally designed just to hold your phone and a tube of lipstick. Number 37, why fly commercial when you can own a flying palace? Saudi Prince Alwaleed bin Talal famously commissioned an Airbus A380 super jumbo decked out in gold-plated fixtures. And Saudi royals reportedly own Boeing 747s with golden thrones, private bedrooms, and home theaters tucked inside. It's basically a mansion with wings.

[00:16:40]Nah, the fuel bill alone on one of these bad boys could probably keep a small airline running for a year.

[00:16:47]Number 38, forget buying a house. Some of the ultra-rich just snap up the entire town. Across America, there's a quiet little trend of wealthy buyers grabbing abandoned or near-empty towns.

[00:16:59]One such place was listed for around $4 million, buildings, streets, history, and all.

[00:17:05]You instantly become mayor, landlord, and lone resident, all rolled into one.

[00:17:10]It's lonely, sure, but on the bright side, you'd never once argue with the neighbors. Number 39, some billionaires flat-out refuse to accept that death is final. Through companies like Alcor Ta'a Leet's, reportedly including folks like Peter Thiel, pay big bucks to have their bodies or just their brains frozen in liquid nitrogen after death, betting future science figures out how to wake them up. Spoiler alert though, nobody's ever been brought back. So far, it's basically the world's most expensive gamble on a great big maybe.

[00:17:41]Number 40, this one's almost too perfect to be real. Right as Banksy's Girl with Balloon sold at Sotheby's for about 1.4 million dollars, a hidden shredder built into the frame whirred to life and sliced the painting into ribbons in front of the whole crowd. But instead of being ruined, the newly renamed Love is in the Bin got even more famous >> [music] >> and later resold for over 25 million.

[00:18:05]People paid more because it self-destructed. Number 41, soccer star David Beckham reportedly dropped around $80,000 on an albino crocodile Himalaya Birkin bag for his wife Victoria back in 2008. That's a single handbag costing more than a brand new luxury car. All made from fancy exotic crocodile skin.

[00:18:25]Mhm, nothing whispers I love you, honey, quite like gifting an accessory worth more than most people pull in over an entire year of working.

[00:18:33]Number 42, hedge fund titan Steven Cohen has a serious appetite for stupidly pricey art. He quietly bought Alberto Giacometti's spindly bronze sculpture Man Pointing for a staggering 141 million dollars, once the most expensive statue ever auctioned. It's basically a thin metal figure of a guy pointing off at nothing in particular. For that kind of money, you'd really hope he was pointing at the exit because that, my friends, is a fortune. Number 43, way back in 1990, Japanese billionaire Ryoei Saito paid 82 and a half million dollars for Van Gogh's Portrait of Dr. Gachet, then casually announced he wanted the painting cremated alongside him when he died. Yikes. Thankfully, that never actually happened. But just imagine being so absurdly rich that you treat a priceless masterpiece like a little personal souvenir to drag along with you into the great beyond. Number 44, Hong Kong billionaire Joseph Lau dropped about $48 million on a stunning 12-carat Blue Moon diamond at auction, then promptly renamed it the Blue Moon of Josephine after his 7-year-old daughter.

[00:19:41]So, while most kids are thrilled to unwrap a shiny new bike on their birthday, this little girl scored one of the rarest gemstones on the entire planet.

[00:19:50]Huh. No pressure on next year's gift, Dad. Number 45, now this is a totally different obsession. Beyond cars and clocks, the ultra-rich love bankrolling wild space dreams, and one of the craziest is asteroid mining. Multiple billionaires have backed ventures aiming to scrape metals off space rocks, some valued at absurd numbers like $700 quintillion.

[00:20:13]They're burning real fortunes today chasing treasure floating millions of miles away. It's basically prospecting, just cranked up to interstellar levels.

[00:20:22]Number 46, before that famous metal rabbit, Jeff Koons set records with Balloon Dog, Orange. A giant stainless steel sculpture shaped exactly like the twisty little balloon animals a clown hands you at a kid's party. It sold for $58 million. $58 million bucks for a sculpture imitating a 50-cent party favor. Somewhere out there a working clown with a fresh pack of balloons is feeling deeply deeply underpaid right about now. Number 47, owning a fast horse is one thing.

[00:20:53]Paying $70 million for one is a whole other galaxy. After winning the Kentucky Derby, the thoroughbred Fusaichi Pegasus was sold to a stud farm for a record-shattering $70 million.

[00:21:05]Not even for racing, but for breeding.

[00:21:08]Mhm? And here's the punchline, as a stud, he turned out to be a flop, fathering barely any champions. 70 million and the horse mostly just grazed. Number 48, it's not just the gold, it's the whole theater of it. At Salt Bae's restaurants, diners happily pay around a thousand dollars for a single golden tomahawk steak. Mostly for the spectacle of the man dramatically sprinkling salt down his forearm. People film it, post it, brag about it for weeks. You're not really paying for dinner here. You're paying for a viral video, plus one very, very expensive piece of meat.

[00:21:45]Number 49, OH, NO, not another fancy watch. Beyond that PayTech record, the late musician Prince's heirs auctioned off his personal yellow gold Piaget watch, which sold for over nine and a half million dollars. A single celebrity's wristwatch fetched more than the lifetime earnings of most regular people, purely because of whose wrist once wore it.

[00:22:08]And the time it tells, of course, is exactly the same time a ten-dollar watch tells. Number 50, we wrap up this stretch in deep, deep water. Beyond the Eclipse, the superyacht arms race just keeps climbing, with vessels reportedly running the ultra-rich upwards of six or seven hundred million dollars, complete with submarines, helipads, swimming pools, and crews of dozens. And these floating palaces sit unused most of the year, quietly burning fortunes in upkeep.

[00:22:37]Turns out the rich don't buy boats, they buy entire floating economies. Number 51, a 1962 Ferrari 250 GTO sold for a record-breaking 51 and a half million dollars, making it one of the priciest cars to ever change hands at auction.

[00:22:53]Only 36 were ever built. But here's the wildest bit, the owners barely drive them, totally terrified a single scratch could wipe out millions. So, you've got $50 million machines built to race, mostly sitting frozen in garages, gathering reverence instead of mileage.

[00:23:10]Number 52, a single gold coin, a 1933 Double Eagle, sold to an anonymous buyer for a staggering $18.9 million, the most ever paid for a coin. Here's the twist, though. The US government once declared owning one flat-out illegal, and most got melted down. So, somebody paid nearly 19 million bucks for a $20 coin that was technically contraband for decades.

[00:23:36]Hmm, worth it?

[00:23:38]You be the judge. Number 53, Pink Floyd legend David Gilmour's famous Black Strat, the guitar behind the solos on six whole albums, sold at auction for a jaw-dropping $14.5 million, becoming the most expensive guitar ever sold. It's an electric guitar that, brand new, would have run you a few hundred bucks. The magic isn't really in the wood or the strings. It's in whose legendary hands once held it. Pure legend tax. Number 54, just imagine your home is a luxury cruise ship that endlessly circles the entire planet.

[00:24:12]Aboard The World, the largest private residential yacht out there, the ultra-rich own actual apartments, million-dollar condos at sea, and live full-time as the ship drifts from port to port. You wake up in a brand new country every few weeks, pay some hefty fees, and never have to step off. Home, but permanently nomadic. Number 55, woah. When Apple rolled out its solid gold Apple Watch Edition, the rich snatched them up for as much as $17,000 each. Then, Apple casually declared the model obsolete just a few years later, meaning the thing can't even be serviced anymore. So, buyers paid 17 grand for gold-wrapped tech that aged like warm milk. One analysis figured it'd take about 37 years for the gold alone to be worth what they paid. Number 56, a single bottle of 1945 Domaine de la Romanée-Conti sold for a staggering $812,000, shattering the wine auction record. One bottle from a vineyard that barely produced a thing that year. And here's the cruel irony of fine wine, the older and pricier it gets, the more likely it's already quietly turned to vinegar.

[00:25:21]So, that's 800 grand for a maybe drinkable gamble.

[00:25:24]Cheers, I guess.

[00:25:26]Number 57, the British Guiana 1-cent magenta, a small, faded, kind of grubby-looking postage stamp from 1856, sold for about 9 and 1/2 million dollars, making it the world's most expensive object by weight. It's literally a tiny scrap of paper smaller than, well, a postage stamp, because it is one. One previous owner, millionaire John du Pont, kept it locked away for years, barely letting a soul lay eyes on it. Number 58, when your $400 million superyacht somehow feels incomplete, you toss in a submarine. Owners now treat private subs, [music] some running 3 million bucks and up, like mere toys stashed aboard their yachts, used to peek at fish a few hundred feet down.

[00:26:10]The late Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen famously owned one. It's basically underwater sightseeing for people who already own the entire ocean view sitting right above it. Number 59, tucked into the Hollywood Hills sits the Shark House mansion, a $23 million home featuring a roughly $1 million aquarium with real-life sharks gliding through it. Because apparently a pool, a killer view, and a wine cellar just weren't enough flex, you need actual apex predators circling around your living room. Dubitable.

[00:26:41]Just imagine the vet bills on that. Or honestly worse, imagine being the poor soul who has to clean that tank. Number 60, the Los Angeles Lakers reportedly sold for a staggering $10 billion, setting the record for the largest sale of a sports franchise in US history. $10 billion bucks, just to own a team of guys who bounce a ball for a living.

[00:27:03]Sure, sure, it's a brand and a business and all that, but when you really boil it down, somebody just bought the world's most expensive group of athletes. Number 61, a pair of sneakers Michael Jordan actually wore during the 1998 NBA finals sold at Sotheby's for a record $2.2 million. Game-worn sweat stains and all. So, somewhere out there a collector owns a pair of used basketball shoes worth more than most luxury homes and almost certainly never slips them on. They just sit in a glass display case smelling faintly of 1998 and pure money. Number 62, tech millionaire Bryan Johnson reportedly spends about $2 million a year trying to reverse his own aging and at one point he literally swapped blood plasma with his teenage son hoping it'd make him younger.

[00:27:50]You read that right. The man tried to top off his own body with his kids blood. He later admitted it showed no real benefit. Money can buy almost anything including deeply weird science experiments. Number 63, a single copy of Action Comics number one, the 1938 issue that first introduced Superman, sold for $6 million among the most ever paid for a comic. A while later a Superman number one reportedly fetched over 9 million.

[00:28:17]These are old paper booklets that once cost a measly 10 cents at the corner newsstand. Now they're locked away in vaults guarded as carefully as the Mona Lisa herself. Number 64, a company paid a record $2.4 million for a plot of land in Decentraland, a virtual world that exists purely as code on a computer somewhere.

[00:28:37]There's no dirt, no view, no actual location you can stand on. You can't walk it, can't build a real house on it.

[00:28:44]Nothing. Over $2 million bucks for some pixels in a metaverse that most people had completely forgotten about by the very next year. Number 65, actor Paul Newman's personal Rolex Daytona, the very watch that kicked off a whole collector craze, sold at auction for a record-shattering $17.8 million. It originally retailed for just a few hundred bucks. That insane leap in value came purely from one little engraving and one very famous wrist. $17 million later, the thing still does exactly what a cheap watch does. It tells you the time.

[00:29:19]Number 66, after Michael Jackson passed, demand for his memorabilia shot straight into the stratosphere. One of his iconic white rhinestone glove sold at auction with related items pulling in around $2 million total. One glove snapped up on behalf of the Macau resort.

[00:29:35]A single sequin glove worth more than a whole mansion. People weren't really buying a glove. They were buying a piece of a legend. One shiny rhinestone at a time. Number 67, celebrity chef Guy Fieri didn't just want a good bottle of wine. He went and bought a five-acre Pinot Noir vineyard in Sonoma. For the ultra-wealthy, owning a vineyard is a wildly popular flex, even though winemaking is famously a fantastic way to turn a big fortune into a small one.

[00:30:05]As the old joke goes, how do you make a million bucks in wine? Easy, you just start with 10 million. Number 68, sticking with music's insane price tags, the 1959 Martin acoustic guitar Kurt Cobain played during Nirvana's haunting Unplugged set sold for $6 million, the most expensive guitar at the time.

[00:30:24]It's a gorgeous instrument, no doubt, but $6 million bucks is really the price of one unforgettable night and one unforgettable musician.

[00:30:33]The wood itself didn't magically get more valuable, you see, the memory attached to it did. Number 69, just when you figured submarines had topped out, designers like Migaloo started pitching full-on submersible superyachts. Yachts that actually dive completely underwater with concepts reportedly valued in the hundreds of millions, even billions.

[00:30:53]These are floating and sinking fortresses packed with pools, helipads, and panic rooms marketed to billionaires itching to literally vanish beneath the waves. Hmm, privacy really doesn't get any more extreme than parking your entire mansion down on the seabed.

[00:31:08]Number 70. Before Mount Nicholson stole the headlines, a parking bay at The Center in Hong Kong sold for around $969,000, nearly a million bucks for a slab of concrete to leave your car on. In a city where space is impossibly tight, even empty rectangles turn into trophies.

[00:31:27]So, somewhere out there, a buyer brags that his parking spot is worth more than entire houses elsewhere on the planet.

[00:31:33]Number 71. Back in 2014, a high-rolling Chinese businessman reportedly paid around $2 million for a single golden-haired Tibetan Mastiff puppy, briefly crowning it the most expensive dog on Earth. It's a fluffy 200-lb ball of fur that drools, sheds, and chews up shoes just like any other dog out there.

[00:31:53]Two million bucks for a pet that, given half a chance, would happily eat your entire couch. Ah. But, a very pricey one. Number 72. Forget a little fish bowl. One Long Island billionaire reportedly installed a colossal 17,000-gallon aquarium right inside his home. Basically, a private indoor ocean complete with the eye-watering filtration, lighting, and maintenance costs you'd expect. It's the kind of feature that turns your living room into a full-blown public aquarium exhibit, just minus the ticket sales.

[00:32:25]Hmm. The electricity bill alone on that thing could probably cover somebody's entire mortgage. Number 73. Before the Lakers grabbed the crown, billionaire Mat Ishbia bought the Phoenix Suns at a $4 billion valuation, the richest price ever paid for an NBA team at the time. 4 billion bucks to own a franchise, sign players, and presumably score the best seats in the entire house. Most fans spend their whole lives dreaming of courtside tickets. This guy just skipped ahead and bought the entire court instead. Number 74, not satisfied with a single pair, one collector scooped up a whole set of Air Jordans that Michael Jordan wore across all six of his championship-winning seasons, the so-called Dynasty Collection, for a record $8 million. That's $8 million bucks for shoes that have already been run in, jumped in, and seriously sweated in.

[00:33:17]They'll never touch a basketball court again, of course. They'll just sit there quietly being expensive.

[00:33:23]Number 75, one Ohio man reportedly bought an entire street for around $5,000, while all across America abandoned towns keep getting scooped up by wealthy buyers chasing that fantasy of ruling their own private little kingdom. You get the streets, the empty buildings, maybe even a creaky old saloon, and absolutely nobody around to share any of it with.

[00:33:45]OH, NO.

[00:33:48]Talk about having yourself some seriously quiet neighbors. Number 76, Bill Gates once strolled into a Christie's auction and paid $30 million for the Codex Leicester, a handwritten notebook by Leonardo da Vinci himself, stuffed full of his scribbled science musings. It's the most expensive book ever sold. 30 million bucks for a 72-page notebook you can't even read easily, since the whole thing's written backwards in mirror script. But hey, when you're Bill Gates, I own a da Vinci diary is a serious flex. Number 77, yikes. A British designer once whipped up a birthday cake absolutely loaded with hundreds of diamonds and hand-sculpted fondant, smashing every record with a price tag of $75 million.

[00:34:33]The thing took over 1,100 hours to make and stretched to full 6 ft long. Of course, you can't actually eat the diamonds, so technically the cake part is a tiny sliver of the cost. 75 million bucks, mostly just to gawk at dessert.

[00:34:48]Number 78. Picture dropping more money on a fragrance than most people spend on a car. Clive Christian's No. 1 Passant Guardant holds a Guinness record as one of the priciest perfumes on Earth, going for around $143,000 for a measly 30 ml, all tucked inside a diamond and gold-studded bottle. Mhm.

[00:35:08]The scent fades in a few hours, but the bragging rights apparently last forever.

[00:35:13]You're really just paying for the bottle.

[00:35:15]Number 79. Here's a flex with a sweet little twist. A young Richard Branson fell head over heels for Necker Island in the Caribbean, listed at $6 million.

[00:35:25]Broke by billionaire standards back then, he lowballed hard and somehow walked away owning the whole 74-acre island for around 180,000 bucks. He later turned it into a legendary luxury retreat. So yeah, sometimes the ultra-rich snag entire tropical islands at thrift store prices. Number 80.

[00:35:45]Singer Celine Dion reportedly spent millions building a full commercial-grade water park right smack in her Florida backyard, packed with massive twisting slides, a lazy river, and the whole lagoon. The thing was so huge it had its own water treatment needs. Most folks happily settle for a pool and a pool floaty. She basically installed a private theme park so her kids never had to wait in a single line.

[00:36:07]Woohoo! Must be nice. Number 81.

[00:36:10]Ukraine's richest man, billionaire Rinat Akhmetov, reportedly bought a sprawling five-floor luxury apartment in Monaco for around $550 million, setting a brand new record. That's right, half a billion bucks for an apartment.

[00:36:25]Not a building, not a sprawling estate, an apartment. Granted, it's five floors in the most expensive square mile on the planet, but still, that's roughly the budget of a small island nation spent on one single home.

[00:36:39]Number 82, the largest piece of Mars ever found on Earth, a 54-lb Martian meteorite, sold at Sotheby's for a staggering $5.3 million.

[00:36:49]It's a rock, a space rock. Fine, but still a rock.

[00:36:53]The thing traveled millions of miles, got blasted clean off Mars by some asteroid smacking into it, and crash-landed here, only for a wealthy buyer to plonk it down on a shelf as the ultimate conversation piece. Number 83, woah, hold on to your wallet for this one.

[00:37:11]A company called El Septimo unveiled a humidor, yep, a fancy box for storing cigars, priced at a jaw-dropping $25 million.

[00:37:21]It reportedly took 37,000 hours to craft and is just dripping with precious materials. 25 million bucks purely to keep your cigars at the perfect humidity. Honestly, at that price, every single cigar inside had better light its own self. Number 84, funny story, this one. A small bag holding traces of actual moon dust, material Neil Armstrong scooped up on Apollo 11, got accidentally sold by the US government in an online auction for just 995 bucks.

[00:37:50]The buyer, an Illinois woman, then flipped it for a staggering 1.8 million after court battle let her keep it. So, somebody's thousand-dollar bargain turned into nearly two million. Talk about a thrift store miracle. Number 85, billionaire Ron Burkle, co-owner of the Pittsburgh Penguins, paid nearly one and a half million dollars for one of Jesse Owens' 1936 Olympic gold medals, the famous ones Owens won right in front of Hitler. It set a record for Olympic memorabilia. At its core, it's just a gold-plated disc, but its real value comes from all the history baked right into it.

[00:38:25]Still, a million and a half for one metal is a serious flex. Number 86. Sit down for this one, but you know, carefully. The Clive of India sofa, an antique 18th century piece just dripping with history and ornate craftsmanship, fetched a staggering $7.8 million at auction, making it one of the most expensive pieces of furniture ever sold.

[00:38:49]Nearly 8 million bucks for a couch.

[00:38:52]You'd be downright terrified to ever sit on the thing, let alone spill a drink.

[00:38:57]It's furniture you admire, not actually use. Number 87. Not every moon rock falls to Earth for free. Christie's auctioned off a piece of one of the world's largest lunar meteorites with an asking price around 2 and 1/2 million dollars. It's a hefty chunk of the actual moon that drifted down to us, and now collectors treat these things like cosmic trophies. You obviously can't display it back up on the moon, so the rich just keep a slice of it under glass in the living room.

[00:39:26]Number 88. Japanese swords are just weapons, they're genuine national treasures. The most expensive sword reportedly ever valued, a historic blade linked to warlord Fukushima Masanori, has been cited at figures around 100 million dollars, with rare antique blades regularly pulling in small fortunes at auctions like Sotheby's. For collectors, owning a centuries-old katana isn't really about cutting anything. It's about possessing a literal, breathing piece of samurai legend you can hang on the wall. Number 89. Just when you thought 75 million was the ceiling, a Nigerian businessman reportedly threw his daughter a birthday bash with a cake rumored to cost an absurd 70 million dollars, sparking total disbelief online. Whether that number's wildly exaggerated or not, the spectacle alone says it all. Somewhere out there, a kid's birthday dessert allegedly cost more than most companies are even worth.

[00:40:20]Aw, no. Just imagine the candles on that thing. Number 90, at a charity auction back in 2005, cigar magnate Marvin Shanken auctioned off a mystery box humidor, and it sold for a staggering $1.8 million dollars. With big names like Rush Limbaugh sitting right there in the room, people forked over nearly 2 million partly because nobody fully knew what was even inside. It's gambling and flexing rolled into one. The ultimate rich person impulse buy. Pay big, find out later. Number 91, Bollywood star Urvashi Rautela reportedly celebrated a birthday by cutting a seven-tier cake studded with real diamonds valued at roughly $2 million. Picture Picture blowing out the candles on the dessert worth more than a mansion. Then, uh what exactly?

[00:41:10]Carefully picking out all the diamonds before you slice it up? It's the kind of cake you photograph a hundred times and barely dare to actually eat. Sweet, sparkly, and gloriously impractical.

[00:41:21]Number 92, at Christie's blockbuster Jim Irsay collection sale, Grateful Dead legend Jerry Garcia's custom-built Tiger guitar sold for a jaw-dropping 11 and a half million dollars. It's a stunning, hand-crafted, totally one-of-a-kind instrument, but for that price, you could grab a mansion, a Ferrari, and still have some change rattling around in your pocket. Whoa. The buyer basically just purchased one musician's six-string memory and locked it away as a fancy trophy. Number 93, at auctions of NASA's Apollo era memorabilia, the ultra-rich eagerly snap up genuine astronaut spacesuits and gear for eye-watering sums. These are real artifacts from humanity's greatest adventure. Worn, scuffed, deeply historic, and now headed straight into private collections instead of museums.

[00:42:08]Critics groan that priceless space history keeps vanishing into people's living rooms, but for a billionaire collector, owning a literal piece of the space race is just too irresistible to pass up. Number 94, you'd figure a kids book about a little boy wizard would run you a few bucks. Yeah, not a first edition. A pristine 1997 first print copy of Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone sold at Heritage Auctions for a record $471,000.

[00:42:36]Only a tiny number were ever printed and collectors treat them like sacred relics.

[00:42:41]Nearly half a million bucks for a children's paperback, Hogwarts never charged tuition that steep. Number 95, yikes, even childhood toys aren't safe from the billionaire treatment. A one-of-a-kind Steiff teddy bear dressed head to paw in Louis Vuitton sold at a charity auction for a reported $2.1 million crowning it the most expensive teddy bear ever. It's a stuffed animal, a luxury branded one, sure, but still a plush toy you'd hesitate to even hug for fear of denting the value. Two million bucks for a bear that just sits there looking adorable. Number 96, at what was billed as the largest meteorite auction ever, the headline lots were 4 lb of genuine moon rock, which sold for around $330,000.

[00:43:26]Just pause on that for a second. Actual pieces of the moon traded around like rare baseball cards. The whole sale pulled in over a million bucks. For the right buyer, a chunk of lunar surface is simply another shelf ornament with an out-of-this-world origin story. Number 97, Jeff Bezos and Lauren Sanchez reportedly threw a 3-day wedding in Venice, Italy with an estimated price tag of around $55 million complete with roughly $255 million complete with roughly 250 VIP guests, dozens of private jets, and the kind of security a small country might envy.

[00:44:02]Locals protested the whole spectacle, but the happy couple sailed right on.

[00:44:06]Most weddings drain the savings account.

[00:44:09]This one basically rented an entire historic city for the weekend.

[00:44:12]>> [music] >> Number 98. OH, NO. Dessert has officially gone off the rails. At Serendipity 3 in New York, the Golden Opulence Sundae rings up at a cool $1,000 and even snagged a Guinness World Record.

[00:44:27]It's layered with rare cocoa, edible gold leaf, and served in a crystal goblet with a gold spoon you actually get to keep. You have to order it 48 hours ahead because nothing screams spontaneous treat like booking your ice cream 2 days early. Number 99. We're almost home.

[00:44:45]So, here's one last little piece of cardboard worth an absolute fortune. A 1909 Honus Wagner baseball card. Once handed out totally free with packs of cigarettes, sold for a staggering 7 and a quarter million dollars, ranking among the priciest sports cards ever. Only a tiny handful survive, partly because Wagner himself reportedly hated being tied to tobacco and shut production down. Whoa. 7 million for a card that came free with a smoke. Number 100. We end right where dreams meet dollars.

[00:45:16]After snagging Necker Island for a song, Richard Branson poured millions into transforming it into one of the most exclusive private getaways on Earth, where renting the whole island runs into the tens of thousands of dollars per night. The place has even survived hurricanes and a fire. So, the ultimate billionaire purchase isn't a thing at all. It's a private paradise and the freedom to vanish to it whenever the world gets too loud.

[00:45:41]Maybe that's the real flex. And there you have it. 100 of the dumbest, most absurd things billionaires actually spent their money on. If your brain hurts as much as ours, smash that like button, drop your favorite in the comments, and subscribe to Factopia for more chaos. See you next time.