Mark Zuckerberg is the latest billionaire to shell out tens of millions of dollars for a pricey outpost in Donald Trump’s gilded capital.
For a month, neighbors in Washington’s upscale Woodland Normanstone neighborhood have speculated about the unidentified buyer who paid $23 million in cash for a 15,000-square-foot mansion. The sale was the third-most expensive in city history and was shrouded in secrecy, with real estate agents muzzled by non-disclosure agreements. Soon after the deal went through in early March, images of the house became pixelated on Google Maps.
But on Monday, the same day flight-tracking web sites revealed that the Meta CEO’s private jet had landed at Dulles Airport, observers on the quiet block not far from the Naval Observatory noticed an uptick in action at the house, which had been largely dark for months.
And on Wednesday, the same day Zuckerberg was spotted at the White House, a Meta spokesperson confirmed it to POLITICO Magazine: “Mark and Priscilla have purchased a home in D.C., which will allow Mark to spend more time there as Meta continues the work on policy issues related to American technology leadership,” the spokesperson told me in a statement referencing Zuckerberg and his wife, Priscilla Chan.
So why would the head of a California-based company with no particular personal ties to Washington feel the need to buy any house in the capital, let alone one of the most expensive places ever sold?
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