Why Mark Zuckerberg is suing Hundreds of Hawaiians for their Land
Mark Zuckerberg is suing hundreds of Hawaiian families to obtain their ancestral lands for his $100 million private property on the Island of Kuai.
Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook CEO and the world's sixth richest man, owns a $100 million beachfront property, purchased in 2014, on the Kuai island in Hawaii. In an effort to make the 700-acre estate more private, Zuckerberg reportedly wants to obtain small plots of land that lie on his estate and are owned by Hawaiian families.
The 14 parcels of land in question have been inherited by the families under a 1850 legislation known as the Kuleana Act which gives natives the right to own the land that they live on, according to the Honolulu Star Advertiser.
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To gain possession of these lands, Zuckerberg's legal team has filed "quiet title and partition" suits against those families which would force them to sell their ancestral lands to the highest bidder through a public auction -- move that has drawn parallels between the tech magnate and yesteryear's sugar barons who stole land from Hawaiian families for their own gains.
"Zuckerberg may be acting more transparently than the sugar barons, but it doesn't make what he is doing right," Hawaii Representative Kaniela Ing told CBS News. "In fact, if he's successful, he will legitimize centuries of land theft in a modern legal context."
However, Zuckerberg has fired back against what he calls are "misleading stories" in a detailed Facebook post.
He says that the lawsuits are intended to find all the land owners -- some of whom are descendants with a quarter percent or one percent of property ownership rights and don't even know it -- and ensure that they are rightfully compensated for their property.
The so-called quiet title suits are designed to "find all these partial owners so we can pay them their fair share," Zuckerberg said in his post. "For most of these folks, they will now receive money for something they never even knew they had. No one will be forced off the land."
"We are working with a professor of native Hawaiian studies and long time member of this community, who is participating in this quiet title process with us," he continued. "It is important to us that we respect Hawaiian history and traditions."
