Topline
Two of the world’s most famous luxury yachts owned by a pair of the richest people in the world collided in a fender-bender accident while anchored off the coast of Naples, Italy this week.
Mexican billionaire Ricardo Salinas Pliego’s luxury yacht, Lady Moura, on July 5, 2023 .
Key Facts
Mexican retail and broadcasting billionaire Ricardo Salinas Pliego took to Instagram Wednesday to share a video of a sleek boat drifting toward his mega yacht Lady Moura as crew members blast the horn, scream and shout in a bid to get the crew’s attention.
The oncoming vessel, Salinas said, was the Venus luxury yacht famously built for Apple co-founder Steve Jobs and now owned by his widow, Laurene Powell Jobs.
The video shows Venus bounce off the side of the Lady Moura without breaching the ship’s hull before it drifts away backwards.
Salinas posted there was no major damage but that his ship was left with “a big scratch that’s going to be a lot to fix.”
He then told his followers to buy Apple products through his Group Elektra retail chain to help Powell Jobs pay for the damage.
Neither billionaire owner was on board the ship at the time of the crash, according to Dagens news of Media Group Denmark.
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The yacht ordered by Apple’s late founder Steve Jobs named “Venus docked at the De Vries shipyard in … [+]
Crucial Quote
“I would like to know what the captain and crew were doing that they didn’t see a yacht the size of mine,” Salinas said on Instagram. “You see that there are no shortage of idiots in the world.”
Key Background
Construction began on Venus, Jobs’ $120 million yacht, in 2009 and was completed three years later. The boat was designed by French industrial designer and architect Philippe Starck and was created to look like an Apple product with sleek lines and 15 tons of glass walls. Jobs himself never boarded the 78.2-meter vessel—he died before it was completed. Lady Moura has been renowned as one of the world’s most lavish yachts since it was launched in 1990. The vessel is almost 105 meters long and can accommodate 27 guests and 72 crew members.
Forbes Valuation
Powell Jobs was ranked as the 126th richest person in the world with an estimated net worth of $14.4 billion as of Thursday. She inherited much of her fortune from her late husband, Jobs, who died in 2011. She is the founder of two philanthropy organizations, the Emerson Collective and the Waverley Street Foundation, and has committed to giving billions of dollars to charitable organizations. Salinas is the heir to the publicly-traded Grupo Elektra, which was founded by his grandfather in the 1950s. He now runs the financial and retail corporation and TV Azteca, the No. 2 Mexican TV broadcaster. As of Thursday, he was ranked as the 221st richest person in the world with an estimated net worth of $10 billion.
Further Reading
Jobs’s Boat and Mexican Billionaire’s Yacht Get Into Fender Bender (Bloomberg)
Steve Jobs’ Mega Yacht Wrecks Billionaire’s Floating Palace (Dagens)
Billionaire Yacht Tracker (Forbes)
Real-time Billionaires (Forbes)
Mary Roeloffs is a Forbes reporter who covers breaking news with a frequent focus on the entertainment industry, streaming, sports news, publishing, pop culture and climate change. She joined Forbes in 2023 and lives in Dallas. She’s covered Netflix’s hottest documentaries, a surge of assaults reported on social media, the most popular books of the year and how climate change stands to impact the way we eat. Roeloffs was included on Editor & Publisher Magazine’s “ 25 Under 30” list in 2023 and worked covering local news in the greater Boston area from 2017 to 2023. She graduated with a double major in political science and journalism from Northeastern University. Follow Roeloffs for continued coverage of streaming wars, pop culture news and trending topics.
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