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Jeff Bezos owns three properties on Indian Creek, the private Miami island so packed with the mega rich it’s nicknamed the Billionaire Bunker. He’s spent about $234 million acquiring the properties, but the island’s exclusive country club has still not accepted him as a member. Bezos has attended parties and made small talk with longtime members, but still nothing, according to the Wall Street Journal.
He’s not the only one getting the stiff arm. Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump, Mark Zuckerberg, and the Qatari royal family all own property on the island. None of them are club members either. The roughly 350-member club charges close to $1 million to join, plus about $44,000 a year in dues, and admission runs through a six-person membership committee and a 15-member board led by former AutoNation CEO Mike Jackson.
Some newcomers get in easily — Jersey Mike’s founder Peter Cancro and Tom Brady both joined without much trouble. Others don’t. Goldman Sachs CEO David Solomon faced a member-organized petition to keep him out before ultimately securing membership. A plastic surgeon who spent four years trying to join eventually gave up and sold his unfinished estate. Zuckerberg bought it for $170 million.