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The real estate gluttony of the superrich is truly eye-popping.

On Sunday, Bernie Sanders brought his tax-the-rich road show to the Bronx, attracting another large and enthusiastic crowd. But as the support for a wealth tax grows, so does the opposition. In California, a group of tech and business leaders have contributed nearly $80 million to a campaign to block a ballot initiative that would impose a one-time 5 percent levy on the net worth of residents with at least a billion dollars. In Washington State, the recent adoption of a 9.9 percent tax on millionaires has spurred predictions of an outmigration by tech executives, and on March 11 Starbucks founder Howard Schultz announced that, after more than four decades in Seattle, he and his wife were moving to Miami (though he didn’t mention the new tax). In New York City, executives have flocked to CNBC to issue apocalyptic warnings about a mass exodus of the megarich should Mayor Zohran Mamdani succeed in increasing the income-tax rate on city residents earning more than a million dollars, and the Partnership for New York City, a business advocacy group, has raised the specter of financial firms decamping for Florida and Texas.

In light of all this, it’s worth examining how the ultrarich actually spend their money, and how much of a crimp in their lifestyle such taxes might impose. Their most visible perks are private planes. The must-have model is the Gulfstream G700, which has seating for up to 19 passengers, 20 panoramic windows, a master bedroom with a shower, a range of 7,750 nautical miles, and a price tag of $80 million.

Then there are the yachts. They range in size from super (100 to 200 feet) to mega (200 to 300) to giga (above 300). Many feature swimming pools, Jacuzzis, saunas, gyms, movie theaters, and garages for jet skis and other playthings. Some have smaller support vessels that offer additional storage space and room for crew members. A more exclusive accessory is the private submarine. Hedge-fund billionaire Ray Dalio has not one but two submersibles and regularly invites scientists and journalists to go down with him to explore the ocean deep.

But there are only so many jets, yachts, and subs that one person can own. It is in real estate that the consumption of the superrich is most conspicuous. There used to be talk of the trophy wife; now it’s the trophy property—or properties. The ultrarich do their best to conceal their portfolios, often using obscurely named limited liability companies to conceal the transactions. They’re concerned about not only security but also appearances, for the level of gluttony on display is truly astounding. A look at the palaces of the patriciate drives home the staggering scale of their wealth—and the hollowness of their complaints about having to pay more tax on it.

Take David Geffen. He’s venerated among the culturati for his generous philanthropy. He’s endowed the David Geffen Wing at the Museum of Modern Art, the David Geffen School of Drama at Yale, the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA, and David Geffen Hall at Lincoln Center. But Geffen has spent just as much on real estate. In 1990, he paid $47.5 million for the fabled 10-acre Beverly Hills estate of Hollywood tycoon Jack Warner, with its 13,000-square-foot Georgian-style mansion, 14 bedrooms, two dozen bathrooms, terraces, pool complex, and nine-hole golf course. Geffen then spent $45 million to remodel it, including $20 million on landscaping alone. During the renovation (which lasted eight years), he stayed at his oceanfront estate in Malibu, which once belonged to Doris Day and which sits on Carbon Beach, a mile-and-a-half long strip also known as Billionaires’ Beach. (Geffen sold it in 2017 to Mark Walter, the CEO of Guggenheim Partners and controlling owner of the Los Angeles Dodgers, for $85 million, which proved prescient, given that the place burned down during the Paradise fire.)

In 2020, Geffen sold the Warner estate to Jeff Bezos for $165 million, which was the most ever paid for a California home—until the following year, when venture capitalist Marc Andreessen and Laura Arrillaga-Andreessen paid $177 million for a seven-acre, 13-structure compound in Malibu’s Paradise Cove, also known as Billionaires’ Bluff. (In March 2022, the couple paid $44.5 million for another home on Malibu’s Escondido Beach, less than a mile away.) Geffen also owns a two-acre estate on star-studded Lily Pond Lane in East Hampton, for which he paid $70 million........

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