You’re walking along Seattle’s Ballard Locks on a Tuesday afternoon when a 387-foot superyacht — longer than a football field — creeps through the narrow waterway while crowds gather to boo. That’s exactly what happened when Mark Zuckerberg’s $300 million vessel “Launchpad” made its grand entrance to Lake Union. The timing? The same day Meta disclosed it was cutting 1,395 jobs across Washington state.
When Luxury Meets Layoffs
The yacht’s arrival created a viral moment of inequality on full display.
The Dutch-built Feadship yacht drew hostile crowds who shouted about taxes and criticized its Marshall Islands flag registry — a common strategy for reducing operating costs. “Pay some f****** taxes!” one spectator yelled as the vessel squeezed through locks that hadn’t seen anything this massive in over a decade. A lock operator told GeekWire this was “the biggest one I’ve had in 14 years.”
Zuckerberg wasn’t aboard during the transit, but his physical presence hardly mattered. The symbolism was complete: a foreign-flagged monument to extreme wealth navigating public waters while local workers absorbed the reality of AI-driven job cuts.
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