For decades, South Florida played a very specific role for the global elite: we were a playground. The ultra-wealthy would fly into Miami or Palm Beach for a few weeks in February, park their yachts, get a tan, and fly back to New York, Silicon Valley, or Seattle to do their actual work. But over the last couple of years, the relationship status between the world’s tech barons, hedge fund kings, and South Florida has shifted from a casual winter fling to a permanent, structural colonization.
Driven south by shifting political climates and aggressive proposed wealth taxes in places like California and New York, the richest human beings on the planet aren’t just buying vacation homes here anymore. They are moving their families, their massive corporate headquarters, and their multi-billion-dollar family offices into our zip codes. In the process, they are completely redrawing the real estate, economic, and cultural maps of the tri-county area.
The absolute epicenter of this modern wealth migration is Indian Creek Island, a private, 300-acre man-made island in Biscayne Bay that has its own municipal government and a dedicated police force patrolling by land and sea. Locally, we’ve always called it the “Billionaire Bunker,” but recently, it has turned into a literal tech-oligarch campus…