I worked at Epic Games for two years. This is real, and the strategy behind it is smarter than most people realize.
Tim Sweeney has spent nearly two decades buying North Carolina forest land. 50,000+ acres across 15 counties. He’s now one of the largest private landowners in the state. The purchases started in 2008, right after the real estate collapse wiped out developers who had been planning golf resorts and luxury communities on biodiverse wilderness.
Sweeney paid $15 million for Box Creek Wilderness, a 7,000-acre stretch in the Blue Ridge foothills containing 130+ rare and threatened species. Developers had owned 5,000 of those acres before the crash. He bought them for conservation prices when nobody else was bidding.
He runs the acquisitions through an LLC called “130 of Chatham.” He buys the land, holds it for years, then either donates it to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, sells it at a discount to state parks, or hands it to land trusts. In 2021, he donated 7,500 acres in the Roan Highlands to the Southern Appalachian Highlands Conservancy. Largest private land donation in North Carolina history.
The part people miss: he told the News & Observer that since 2021, land got too expensive to keep buying. So he shifted focus to converting his existing 50,000 acres into permanent conservation status. He’s locking the land into legal structures that make development impossible regardless of who owns it in the future.
A billionaire worth roughly $6 billion is spending tens of millions acquiring wilderness specifically during economic downturns, then giving it away or placing it under permanent legal protection. The land will outlast him, Epic Games, and Fortnite.
That’s the part that separates Sweeney from billionaires who write checks to get their name on a building. The building depreciates. The forest compounds.
The Cleveland Cavaliers are signing two-way forward Nae'Qwan Tomlin to a new two-year, $3 million guaranteed contract, agent Aaron Turner of Verus Basketball tells ESPN. Tomlin has served as a reliable, energetic reserve for the Cavs.
it's your last chance this season to win an authentic practice jersey!
hit us with a repost for your shot at bringing home a piece of our weekly routine 🔁
@Binary_Defense | #DawgPound
ONE NIGHT ONLY!
Experience the heart of Christmas at the Kennedy Center!
Charles Billingsley and special guest Matthew West present 𝘕𝘰𝘦𝘭: 𝘑𝘦𝘴𝘶𝘴 𝘐𝘴 𝘉𝘰𝘳𝘯
—a spectacular evening of timeless carols, big band joy, a live nativity, and a celebration of faith.
7:30 PM on December 17th.
Tickets⤵️
https://t.co/ug0aBIcGMM
NEW: A distinguished female Navy captain within Naval Special Warfare — a Purple Heart recipient with experience w/ SEAL Team Six — was expected to take command this summer, when it was abruptly cancelled just days before. The impression within the NSW community: Secretary Hegseth did not want a woman fronting a role that would recruit special operations.
Her career is now effectively over.
That and more about how women in the military are being impacted by current policies and rhetoric around their service, w/ @brikeilarcnn@ikhurshudyan
https://t.co/hZbSFSPqc6
🚨 UPDATE: Clippers owner Steve Ballmer has been sued by 11 Aspiration investors who allege Ballmer used the company (now named Catona) "to secretly funnel millions of dollars to star NBA player, Kawhi Leonard [...] paying him more than allowed by the NBA’s salary cap rules" 🧵