Who gives a Zuck? Seattle does, apparently: Meta CEO’s giant yacht brings gawkers to Lake Union

People saw it on Facebook. And they saw you on Instagram. But many should have come to see it up close and personal.

Social media scrollers turned into virtual spectators Wednesday as onlookers paused along the west shore of Seattle’s Lake Union to take in Meta founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s superyacht.

No one knew why the $300 million, 387-foot Launchpad was in Seattle. Some wished it wasn’t so. Others were thrilled to see the gleaming blue and white ship, restored to a large slip along Westlake Avenue North.

“I’ve been selling boats here in Seattle on Lake Union for 35 years, and I believe this is the biggest boat I think I’ve ever seen on the lake,” Tony Witek told GeekWire.

The largest boat Witek ever sold was nearly 90 feet long. He called Zuckerberg’s Dutch-built yacht a “personal yacht”. Asked how many boats he would have to sell to buy one like Zuck’s, Witek laughed.

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“I think you will only have to sell this one, and then you can easily retire,” he said.

On a blue-sky blue lunch day, the bike and pedestrian side of the lake was very busy, and it came down to a small area as people stopped to stare, take selfies, FaceTime friends or simply ask, “Whose boat is that?”

On the water, people get even closer to dinghies and kayaks – and are warned not to be stopped by a private security guard from the land. A stand up paddleboarder floats by to take pictures. An Argosy Cruises cruise ship went down while passing near the yacht’s bow. Two electric charter boats circle as passengers head up the towering Launchpad.

The ship arrived in Seattle on Tuesday night, drawing the same crowd as it did through the Ballard Locks. The timing was called less than ideal by some, as Meta cut nearly 1,400 jobs in Washington state earlier in the day.

“Your timing seems a little off,” said Tim Peterson of Renton. “Maybe you should have kept it over there in Msindu for a long time.”

Peterson said he couldn’t buy his boat and said he would be lucky to get a boat. He is not on Facebook, but he is on Instagram owned by Meta.

“I helped pay for it a little bit,” he laughed. “I think my taxes helped pay for it as well,” he added, lamenting the boat as a glaring example of excesses when so many people don’t have food, housing and health care.

“If people have that, by all means, get yourself a big old boat,” Peterson said.

The boat pulled several workers from Meta’s offices near South Lake Union. The two engineers said it was exciting to get a ship-level concept, especially from the head of their company.

“That’s what it’s like to work for a conglomerate,” said one of the workers. The two did not want to say their names because they were afraid of being fired.

Steven Redpath, a former Boeing employee, said he used to come to Lake Union to see the airline’s superyacht, the Daedalus. The floating business entertainment center was sold for about $13 million in 2020.

“Boeing has cleaned up their corporate image and abandoned the boat,” said Redpath, who detoured on his bicycle to see the Launchpad.

“We’re bending over backwards for public transportation. We’re always looking for solutions to the problem of homelessness, and that’s not helping,” he said, pointing to the boat. “I think capitalism is letting us down. This is not what our founding fathers intended. This is the opposite.”

Gurneet Takhar, an estate planning attorney in Seattle who spends his time analyzing the fortunes of billionaires and billionaires, called the boat “an exciting asset to own.”

A man driving a boat nearby said he had a boat on the lake and walked over to see the size, joking about how many of his boats could fit in the boat. One man commented on taxes while pointing to the flag of a Marshall Islands yacht, a common registry for large yachts.

And one observer, a real estate broker who reflects on the impact of Seattle’s tech layoffs and housing market, called the boat “ugly.”

Deckers from the yacht could be seen unloading cardboard from a U-Haul truck parked in the dock. It was hard to tell what was in the boxes – things to live in Seattle, maybe. Other workers, including one who cleaned parts of the boat, could be seen on the upper decks.

There was no sign of Zuckerberg.

Ava Pappas stopped by after seeing a photo of the boat on her aunt’s Instagram story.

Pappas leads a Seattle running club called Cool Down Running that runs from the Center for Wooden Boats in South Lake Union to the Fremont Bridge and back on Wednesday nights.

He planned to stop with the group during the run.

“It’s crazy. A lot of people don’t understand how big this megayacht is,” Pappas said. “It’s a real pleasure to be able to see it in person. It’s a beautiful boat, and I love looking at it in awe.”

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