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Billionaire Salesforce<\/a> CEO Marc Benioff has deep-rooted connections to Hawaii, and he\u2019s been suspiciously quiet about them for the most part. He has long maintained a beachside mansion in Waimea, and recently got caught buying up swaths of land in Hawaii<\/a>, which was all revealed in an NPR expos\u00e9<\/a>. He\u2019s also infamous for referring to his Salesforce employees as \u201cohana,\u201d or the Hawaiian concept of family.\u00a0<\/p>\n Now he\u2019s announced a major donation\u2014one of the largest in the state\u2019s history\u2014to three hospitals on the island. The $150 million gift announced Tuesday from Benioff and his wife, Lynne, brings the couple\u2019s total philanthropy in Hawaii to more than $250 million, \u201cincluding recent gifts of 282 acres for affordable housing on the Island of Hawaii and another 158 acres owned by a separate nonprofit entity for charitable use,\u201d according to a press release.\u00a0<\/p>\n Of the $150 million gift announced Tuesday, $50 million will go to the Hilo Medical Center to build out a family birthing center, intensive care unit, neurosurgical program, and behavioral health services. The remaining $100 million will go to Hawaii Pacific Health to create a health care campus at the Honolulu-based Straub Medical Center, promising to \u201cdeepen connections\u201d between Hawaii hospitals and UCSF Health in San Francisco.<\/p>\n \u201cWe feel fortunate to have been part of the Hawai\u2018i community for many decades and to be able to support our ohana in this way,\u201d the Benioffs said in a statement. \u201cNothing is more important than the health of our community, and access to care for all who need it.\u201d<\/p>\n But Benioff bought more than 600 acres in Hawaii since 2020 that are worth a combined $100 million, according to the NPR story. A spokesperson for the Benioffs says, however, they\u2019ve donated much of that land.<\/p>\n \u201cMarc and Lynne have donated almost 75% of the total land they\u2019ve purchased in Hawaii over the last quarter century, and well over 90% of the land they\u2019ve purchased since 2020,\u201d the spokesperson told Fortune<\/em> in a statement. \u201cThis includes 282 acres donated to the Hawaii Island Community Development Corporation (HICDC), a non-profit developer of affordable housing, and 158 acres to a separate non-profit that holds the property for HICDC if it chooses to use it, or for other philanthropic uses if it does not.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n Assuming the Benioffs have donated 90% of the land they\u2019ve bought since 2020, they still personally own 60 acres in Hawaii. That\u2019s nearly 200% of what an average homeowner in Hawaii has, according to data from Today\u2019s Homeowner<\/a>, where the average plot size is 0.23 acres.<\/p>\n Housing affordability in Hawaii has gotten so bad that there has been a mass exodus of natives<\/a> to other U.S. cities\u2014and Hawaiian homes cost more than twice the national average at more than $670,000, according to a University of Hawaii study<\/a>.<\/p>\n But for the ultra-rich, like Benioff, housing costs aren\u2019t a problem. Plus, Hawaii has the lowest property tax<\/a> in the nation, meaning the wealthy can get a major tax break for buying land and properties there. Benioff saves roughly a quarter million per year for all 600 acres, previous Fortune <\/em>reporting<\/a> shows.<\/p>\n Other millionaires and billionaires have also started buying properties on Hawaii to build bunkers<\/a> to retreat to in the event of an emergency, but Benioff denies that\u2019s what he\u2019s doing.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m not a prepper,\u201d Benioff told NPR reporter Dara Kerr. \u201cWe don\u2019t have outsized properties. We have basically enough for ourselves.\u201d Benioff was so bothered by Kerr\u2019s digging that he allegedly kept tabs on her location on the island, looked into her personal life, and even contacted her CEO after her major discovery<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\nHawaiian housing struggles<\/h2>\n
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