Jeff Bezos wants historic bridge brought down so his massive boat can sail through
Uber-rich Amazon founder Jeff Bezos can't get his mega-boat out to sea, so he's having a historic bridge moved out of his way.
Gizmodo and Dutch News reported that the boat is so large (417 feet in length) that the 131-foot clearance simply isn't large enough to accommodate Bezos' ship mast.
The custom shipbuilder Oceanco reportedly asked the city of Rotterdam if they could take the nearly 100-year-old bridge down to handle the yacht and that Bezos would pay to take it down.
Known locally as De Hef, it was damaged during World War II but survived and has been repaired ever since. The last time it was renovated was in 2017, which was supposed to be the last time for a very long time. That was until one of the world's wealthiest men needed to move his ship.
"Needless to say, not everyone in Rotterdam is thrilled about the idea of manipulating a nearly century-old local landmark at a billionaire’s behest despite claims from some that the project may add temporary jobs," Gizmodo explained.
"Employment is important, but there are limits to what you can and may do to our heritage,” said Rotterdam Historical Society's Ton Wesselink.
Bezos also bought a smaller "Support yacht" that has the equipment and a helipad. Most recently, Bezos dropped $42 million on a 500-foot-tall clock he wants to be able to run for 10,000 years.
Bloomberg News noted that in 2021 there was a dramatic increase in the purchase for mega-yachts by the wealthiest in the world. It's a 77 percent increase from yacht sales in 2019.
Bloomberg also reported Wednesday that a slate of Wall Street bankers had some of the largest bonuses in the past decade thanks to the corporate bailouts the GOP included in their early COVID stimulus bills.
"Not since the late 2000s, when lavish bonuses rained down before and after federal bailouts, have pay packages at U.S. investment banks swelled as much as they have right now," the report said.
Read the full story on Bezos at Gizmodo.
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