Japanese billionaire Yusaku Maezawa has done a name for himself as a stone musician, an online conform noble and, now, Earth’s initial moon tourist.
The 42-year-old tech aristocrat done headlines Tuesday when SpaceX suggested that Maezawa has franchised a moody aboard a company’s Big Falcon Rocket, that is still being developed, for a slingshot outing around a moon as shortly as 2023.
He’s formulation to take 6 to 8 artists with him, and he won’t be charging them for a ride.
“I wish to share this knowledge and things with as many people as possible,” Maezawa told a news conference. “So, we select to go to a moon with artists.”
Maezawa done his happening in e-commerce, though his initial adore was song — an attention in that he done a transition from artist to entrepreneur.
He started an indie stone rope in high school, releasing an EP in 1993. He skipped college to follow his then-girlfriend to a United States, where he started collecting CDs and annals of bands he liked.
When he returned to Japan in 1995, he started an import song business, offered CDs and vinyls of his favorite bands by mail from his home.
In 1998, he used a mail-order song business to launch Start Today, fixing a association after an manuscript by punk rope Gorilla Biscuits. That same year, Maezawa’s band, Switch Style, sealed with a tag BMG Japan. He expelled 3 albums with them before stepping divided to concentration on his business.
Start Today had changed online and was now offered clothing, too. The conform arm became so successful that Maezawa spun it off as Zozotown. Vogue described a e-commerce conform hulk as a cranky between Net-a-Porter and Amazon (AMZN)
Maezawa is a monument in Japan: a billionaire who shuns suits and encourages his employees to have fun.
At an annual formula display final year, Start Today CFO Koji Yanagisawa delivered a gain news dressed as a mushroom, observant he was carrying on a tradition started by Maezawa in 2010.
Last year, Maezawa dropped $110.5 million on a Jean-Michel Basquiat painting, a top ever cost paid during auction for a work by an American artist.
In an talk with a Observer, Maezawa pronounced that while he’d always had a low seductiveness in art and fashion, he didn’t start collecting until about 10 years ago.
He’s building a museum in his hometown of Chiba and has been scooping adult art during a hectic pace.
He had set a prior auction high for Basquiat months earlier, behest $57.3 million for an untitled portrayal during Christie’s. In 2016, he also purchased a work by Pablo Picasso for $22.6 million and several other costly pieces.
Forbes estimates Maezawa is value $2.9 billion, so he’s got low pockets to stake his art obsession and space ambitions.
The ex-musician is now dating famous Japanese singer Ayame Goriki. No word nonetheless on either she’ll obstacle a chair to a moon.
— Jackie Wattles contributed to this report.