Forbes' Richest Americans: How to Spend $1B

N E W  Y O R K, Sept. 16, 2002 -- It takes all kinds to make the world go round, and it takes all kinds to make Forbes' list of America's 400 Richest.

The billionaires on our list have a variety of strange and expensive hobbies — including funding longevity research, flying military aircraft and searching for extraterrestrial life.

We looked at five classic billionaire personality types:

The Geek, the Limousine Liberal, the Thrill Seeker, the Hedonist and the Narcissist, and came up with some fanciful ways that they might squander their fortunes.

First, the Top 10 Richest Americans:

The Geek

An original 1977 poster print of Star Wars. $344 (after a bidding war with Luke444).

500 black-market clones of himself. At $1.7 million a pop (see "We Cloned You. Now, Here's The Bill"), that's $850 million.

"Big gesture" date with high-school crush. Flies her to his hometown on his private jet (cost $40 million) and has an extravagant dinner (at Olive Garden for an estimated $50). The homecoming queen politely declines invitation to procreate. The geek buys a Russian wife on the Internet for about $5,000. Total cost for companionship? $40,005,050.

Fifty-year supply of McDonald's Big Mac value meal: $9,836,750. Pays $280,800 to have his mother-in-law overnight borscht every week for 60 years.

Gives rest of fortune ($250 million) to a nonprofit scientific research organization in the Russian hometown of his newly acquired wife.

The Limousine Liberal

To feed the 31.1 million Americans living in poverty a $6 tofu turkey sandwich with organic sprouts, tomatoes, non-dairy Swiss cheese on whole-wheat bread, the limo liberal spends $186.6 million.

In a rash act of generosity, pops for idol Lance Bass' trip to the moon on a shoddily made Russian rocket ship. Cost: $20 million.

Adopts 50,000 children for $24 a month for 50 years in Sally Struthers-sponsored Save the Children program. Cost: $720 million.

Donates $5 million to save the endangered American burying beetle and the black lace cactus. He would also save 100,000 acres of rain forest for about $5 million, and using some $17 million in pocket change, he would adopt five miles of highway in a cleanup program.

Finally, the cost to bail out the Catholic Church from pending sexual misconduct charges and all future charges easily eats up his remaining fortune of $143 million.

The Hedonist

He would have homes in Amsterdam and Las Vegas and his own private island in the Bahamas (cost: $25 million). He would hire two supermodels to travel with him and dress up like lions and sit outside the gates of his homes. (Considering that Gisele Bundchen earned $12.5 million last year, the estimated cost of two supermodels would come in at about $25 million a year, or $250 million over 10 years. Estimated collective cost: $275 million.

His masseuse and chef (he would keep one of each in all three of his homes) would cost about $3 million a year, or $150 million over 50 years.

The average male uses about 600 pairs of underpants over his lifetime. The hedonist would wear his way through twice that, and in the name of self-indulgence, they would be made of pure silk ($50,000 for 1,000 pairs). For special occasions, a small percentage would be custom-made leather underpants, costing $30,000 for about 200 pairs ($150 each). Total cost: $80,000.

He'd wear diamonds on the soles of his shoes. Assuming a price of $800 to $900 per carat and covering the soles of his shoes with 3.5 ounces of diamonds, he'd spend about $422,450. Wearing diamonds on the soles of 50 pairs of shoes would cost him about $22,122,500. Keeping a lifetime supply of $67-an-ounce caviar: $490,000.

With more than $500 million left, he persuades Hugh Hefner to hand over his velvet smoking jackets and sell him Playboy Enterprises.

The Thrill Seeker

The first item the thrill seeker would buy would be a Gulfstream Jet ($40 million). He'd then learn how to fly his glamour toy ($300,000).

He would buy himself a trip to outer space every year for about 25 years ($500 million), and he'd probably buy a heli-skiing mountain (it costs roughly $7,000 a day, or $2.5 million a year). Cost for adrenaline highs: $502.5 million.

For kicks during his off time, he'd take lion-taming lessons for $3,000 to $4,000. (He'd also buy his friends and family T-shirts that say, "My (fill in the blank) put his head in a lion's mouth, and all I got was this lousy T-shirt," costing an additional $200.) He'd then buy himself a small lion farm and a couple a keepers for $2 million.

As old age seeps in, the thrill seeker will start settling down, craving more sedate activities, and might buy daily passes to the Dolly Parton-themed amusement park Dollywood for about $18,000 a year, $90,000 for five years. When he's too old to walk on his own, he'll take his thrills where he can get them, most likely under the dentist's drill, for about $150 an hour.

He'd donate his remaining fortune ($440 million or so) to building a bungee jumping station on the moon.

The Narcissist

His first major purchase would be a monument similar in size and scale to Mount Rushmore, featuring his own face. Mount Rushmore cost about $989,992.32 in 1941. Adjusting that figure, according to the Consumer Price Index, it would grow to about $11.9 million today. The actual mountain range would cost well over $10 million. If the narcissist built comparable monuments in all seven continents, it would cost him about $189 million.

The narcissist could only live in a town that he owned. He'd buy four municipalities for about $80 million (Kim Basinger got hers for $20 million) and start competing local newspapers to cover the events of his life ($22 million). Cost for being master of his domain: $102 million.

The narcissist also got hair plugs in three separate procedures for about $8,000 and $25,000 worth of plastic surgery. He spends about $500 every six weeks for full body wax treatments, costing about $215,000 over 30 years. Total cost: $248,000.

Like a former president, the narcissist would get $200 haircuts from a renowned stylist on the runway of the Los Angeles International Airport, creating 45-minute delays. A $200 haircut in 1993 would cost about $245 today, and if we build in the cost of the runway delays (about $20 to $30 per minute), the total cost of that haircut today would be about $1,370. If the narcissist got those haircuts every six weeks for the next 50 years, it would cost him $589,100.

Spend his remaining fortune ($750 million) in legal and lobbying fees in an effort to buy the rights to rename everything on the planet he can after himself.

For more on the Forbes 400, go to Richest Americans. And for more from Forbes, go to Forbes.com..