Careless People: A Cautionary Tale of Power, Greed, and Lost Idealism

by Sarah Wynn-Williams

If I had any doubts about Mark’s intention to become a presidential candidate, his response to some bad press in Hawaii wipes them away. Mark owns a lot of land in Hawaii. He started with seven hundred acres of beachfront property in Kauai. Then he launched lawsuits against hundreds of Hawaiians who may have held titles to small plots on his estate, under an old Hawaiian law, to force them to sell their land to him. Many do not wish to sell. Mark was doing all this quietly, through three shell companies, but then the fact that he owned the companies was revealed by the Honolulu Star-Advertiser. “This is the face of neocolonialism,” a law professor pronounces in one of the articles. The Vanity Fair headline reads, “Man of the People Mark Zuckerberg Sues to Keep Native Hawaiians Off His Kauai Estate.” An Inertia editorial says, “So now it looks as though not only is Zuckerberg suing a bunch of native Hawaiians over land that’s been in their families for generations, but he’s suing DEAD people. What a dick move!” This is the sort of media coverage that months ago Mark would have brushed off. I’ve seen him weather all sorts of bad press, going back years, and he never seemed to care. But now he’s on the phone to Elliot, all worked up. I overhear them. Mark tells Elliot to do something about the headlines and Elliot explains that would be difficult because they seem to be true. (Ha!) Then Mark declares he’s just going to get rid of the entire estate, sell everything he has in H...