They’re rich. They rule the tech world. These might be your first thoughts about Silicon Valley’s most notable tycoons, and you’re not alone. So what do nerdy billionaires drive anyway? The answers may surprise you.
Here, we’re profiling the car choices of Silicon Valley’s most famous (or infamous) techies, be they modest, suspicious, or impractical.
Sergey Brin and Larry Page drove matching Priuses
Well, isn’t this cute? Sergey Brin and Larry Page, co-founders of the life-blood search engine Google, earned billions before their 2019 retirement. But creating and exiting Google’s empire weren’t the only things these two did together. They also purchased twin Toyota Priuses in the early 2000s.
Toyota Prius made its US debut for the 2001 model year and has boasted 50 mpg combined—or better—ever since. Considering Silicon Valley’s environmentally conscious reputation, a hybrid seems like an obvious choice for the darlings of Google. Still, when Brin and Page bought a 180-passenger Boeing jet in 2005, it was clear that their bank accounts were only green on their minds.
Larry Ellison: the private collector
While we’re on the subject of rich guys named Larry, former CEO, and Oracle founder Larry Ellison is allegedly an extravagant car collector. According to Autoevolution, he used to own a 1995 McLaren F1 but sold it for over $3.5 million. Larry is notoriously private and prefers to house much of his car stash on Lanai, his private Hawaiian island.
Lanai locals have glimpsed Ellison zooming around in an orange C8 Corvette Stingray—the vehicle he is said to favor there. He did install a Tesla Supercharger station on Lanai, but we’re guessing that’s mostly for when Elon Musk comes over.
Steve Jobs’ revolving door of German sports cars
In the later years of his life, Steve Jobs had 100 versions of the same black turtleneck and similarly approached car ownership. No, he didn’t own 100 cars at once, but he did replace his car every six months with the same make, model, and color.
It started with his black Porsche 911. Jobs liked this car (it matched his turtleneck) and drove no less than two of them a year. He then repeated this same routine with a silver Mercedes-Benz SL55 AMG. Why? Back then, California’s auto lease laws allowed drivers to forgo license plates for the first six months, a legal loophole that the quirky brainiac loved.
Travis Kalanick may need to call an Uber (if they’ll have him)
Disgraced Uber founder Travis Kalanick is a billionaire despite his legal fees and failed business ventures. While he was Uber’s CEO in the late 2010s, Kalanick said he owned a 1999 BMW M3, but the alternator was broken, and his driver’s license expired.
With no plans to renew his license or restore his M3 to greatness, Travis added to his professional woes when he was caught on tape arguing with the driver of an Uber Black—the luxury arm of the company’s rideshare service. After apologizing to his driver, Travis decided to play it safe and hired a private chauffeur.
Luxury cars aren’t Zuckerberg’s thing
Meta magnate Mark Zuckerberg is a man of simple tastes. He wears a gray t-shirt most days to limit the small decisions he makes à la Steve Jobs. He owns several cars, but most are rides you’d see in your average grocery store parking lot.
Back when he was 23 and the world’s youngest self-created billionaire (he ranks just outside the top ten richest people these days), Zuckerberg proudly drove a Honda Fit. Lately, he’s added to his super normal auto collection with an Acura TSX, Infiniti G25, and Volkswagen Golf MK6 GTI. But Mark has a sassy side. No, we’re not talking about another Facebook scandal, the one fancy car Mark owns is the Pagani Huayra—an Italian supercar that set him back $1.4 million.
Elizabeth Holmes’ suspicious Audi
It’s not easy for women in Silicon Valley’s cutthroat tech industry, and unfortunately, Elizabeth Holmes’ Theranos disaster left a haunting impression.
Before Holmes was sentenced to 11 years and three months in prison, she aimed to emulate Steve Jobs so much that she donned daily black turtlenecks and rode around in a black Audi A8—with no license plates. Bodyguards drove Holmes’ Audi, but safety precautions nor secrecy could shield her from the fraud convictions that would ultimately undo her.
This article originally appeared on MyCarMakesNoise.
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