Photo: Mathieu Stern on Unsplash
Cover Photo: Mathieu Stern on Unsplash

Have you ever wondered what the world's richest men do when they are not working?

In many television series and films, a rich businessman is often introduced to viewers as a serious, hardworking debonair who only knows how to sleep and hustle. 

The truth is, there are many activities that the world's richest men enjoy during their free time. In this article, we find out the hobbies of men like Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, Bill Gates, and more.

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Elon Musk

Tatler Asia
BEVERLY HILLS, CA - FEBRUARY 22:  CEO of Tesla and Space X Elon Musk attends the 2015 Vanity Fair Oscar Party hosted by Graydon Carter at Wallis Annenberg Center for the Performing Arts on February 22, 2015 in Beverly Hills, California.  (Photo by Pascal Le Segretain/Getty Images)
Above BEVERLY HILLS, CA - FEBRUARY 22: CEO of Tesla and Space X Elon Musk attends the 2015 Vanity Fair Oscar Party hosted by Graydon Carter at Wallis Annenberg Center for the Performing Arts on February 22, 2015 in Beverly Hills, California. (Photo by Pascal Le Segretain/Getty Images)

Entrepreneur and business magnate Elon Musk carries a lot of responsibilities in his hands. He is the founder, CEO, and chief engineer of Space X; an investor, CEO, and product architect of Tesla (formerly Tesla Motors); founder of The Boring Company; and co-founder of Neuralink and OpenAI.

An article by the South China Morning Post revealed that during Elon's free time, the real-life Iron Man would read tons of books ranging from fantasy and sci-fi novels to biographies and structural engineering.

Elon is also an avid gamer; when he was 12, he sold a video game called Blastar for US$500. The game centres around the story of a lone space pilot whose mission is to destroy an alien freighter that carries deadly hydrogen bombs and status beam machines. 

Jeff Bezos

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WASHINGTON, DC - SEPTEMBER 13:  CEO and founder of Amazon Jeff Bezos participates in a discussion during a Milestone Celebration dinner September 13, 2018 in Washington, DC. Economic Club of Washington celebrated its 32nd anniversary at the event.  (Photo by Alex Wong/Getty Images)
Above WASHINGTON, DC - SEPTEMBER 13: CEO and founder of Amazon Jeff Bezos participates in a discussion during a Milestone Celebration dinner September 13, 2018 in Washington, DC. Economic Club of Washington celebrated its 32nd anniversary at the event. (Photo by Alex Wong/Getty Images)

Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, who has a staggering net worth of $45.2 billion, spends most of his free time sleeping and making side projects.

In an interview with the Wall Street Journal, the billionaire revealed that he sleeps eight hours every night. "I am more alert and I [can] think more clearly, I just feel so much better all day long if I've had eight hours [of sleep]," he said.

Jeff has also taken up several gigs. In 2013 he bought The Washington Post, one of America’s most prestigious newspapers. He also founded Blue Origin, a company that could give everyone the opportunity to travel into outer space.

See also: Jeff Bezos' Ex MacKenzie Scott Donates US$2.7 Billion To 286 Charities

Bernard Arnault

Tatler Asia
Photo: Bloomberg
Above Photo: Bloomberg

Besides being the richest man in fashion, LVMH chairman Bernard Arnault is a good pianist. He was a trained pianist who knows how to play six of Frédéric Chopin's etudes by heart.

Another hobby of his is reading the works of 19th-century Romantic novelists like Stendhal who is best known for his novels Le Rouge et le Noir and La Chartreuse de Parme.

Bill Gates

Tatler Asia
Photo: Business Insider
Above Photo: Business Insider

Software developer and philanthropist Bill Gates knows how to spend his free time well. In a Reddit post, he made a few years back, the Microsoft CEO revealed that he loves playing tennis

He added that he loves playing Contract Bridge, a trick-taking card game using a standard 52-card deck, and spend time with his family. 

"I love playing tennis. I am an avid bridge player. I like to tour interesting things with my kids like power plants, garbage dumps, the Large Hadron Collider, Antarctica, missile Silos (Arizona)... I read a lot and watch courses (online or the Learning Company)," he said.

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Mark Zuckerberg

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SAN FRANCISCO - APRIL 21:  Facebook founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg delivers the opening keynote address at the f8 Developer Conference April 21, 2010 in San Francisco, California. Zuckerberg kicked off the the one day conference for developers that features breakout sessions on the future  of social technologies.  (Photo by Justin Sullivan/Getty Images)
Above SAN FRANCISCO - APRIL 21: Facebook founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg delivers the opening keynote address at the f8 Developer Conference April 21, 2010 in San Francisco, California. Zuckerberg kicked off the the one day conference for developers that features breakout sessions on the future of social technologies. (Photo by Justin Sullivan/Getty Images)

The multi-billion-dollar social media giant that is Facebook has redefined the internet for years. Its founder, Mark Zuckerberg has accumulated a US$121.5 billion net worth as of writing.

Speaking to students at North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University in 2017, Mark revealed that he learned more from a hobby than he did in a college course he took at Harvard. “At Facebook, we often ask [job candidates], ‘What is something that you’ve built that is outside of the jobs you’ve done?’ I probably learned more coding from random side projects that I did than the courses I took in college," he said.

When Mark is not busy running Facebook, he makes sure that he could work on other side projects and travel to meet new people. 

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