Mark Zuckerberg gifted noise-canceling headphones to his Palo Alto neighbors because of the non-stop construction around his 11 homes

Mark Zuckerberg purchased at least 11 homes on Edgewood Drive and Hamilton Avenue in Palo Alto, spending more than $110 million over 14 years. He expanded and modified properties into guest homes, lush gardens, a pickleball court, a pool with a hydrofloor, and briefly operated a private school for his children and others, raising zoning concerns. Some properties remain empty amid a regional housing shortage while construction, surveillance, and frequent large parties have dominated the neighborhood. Neighbors cited nearly eight years of continual construction, street blockages, debris, and relentless noise. He gifted noise-canceling headphones and other items toward easing tensions.

Mark Zuckerberg, the billionaire cofounder of Facebook and CEO of Meta, reportedly gave noise-canceling headphones to his neighbors in the Crescent Park neighborhood of Palo Alto in an effort to address years of frustration over ongoing construction and disruption surrounding his expanding residential compound, according to The New York Times. Zuckerberg has spent more than $110 million purchasing at least 11 homes on Edgewood Drive and Hamilton Avenue over the past 14 years, transforming this once-idyllic neighborhood of lawyers, business executives, and Stanford University professors into a zone dominated by construction equipment, surveillance, and frequent lavish parties.

Some of these properties sit empty in a region known for its acute housing shortage, while others have been converted into guest homes, lush gardens, a pickleball court, a pool with a hydrofloor, and-at least for a time-a private school for Zuckerberg's children and several others (a use that appears not to comply with local zoning ordinances). Underneath the compound, Zuckerberg added 7,000 square feet of space described as "basements," which area residents have described as more akin to "bunkers" or a "billionaire's bat cave." Zuckerberg similarly added a 5,000-square-foot underground structure to his compound in Hawaii, which he insists is not a "doomsday bunker."

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