Biography & Early Wealth Journey

"Yes, I never have any money because I always spend it."

Still, even as a billionaire, it's not completely ridiculous that he would need to sell off a few odds and ends given recent dips in his Zozo fashion empire's stock price, as well as huge purchases like the SpaceX trip and a $110.5 million purchase of a painting by Jean-Michel Basquiat.

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Primary Income Streams & Multi-Million Contracts

The paintings being sold by Maezawa, in a Sotheby's auction scheduled for May 16th, probably aren't worth as much as that. But among the paintings are a piece by Andy Warhol and another by Ed Ruscha, both of which are estimated to be worth between $1.5 million and $3 million each – all this to say, he's clearly not "broke" in the sense that most people understand the term. But if he's going to keep himself in ultra-expensive paintings and lavish trips to outer space for the foreseeable future, he may need to keep making return trips to the auction house, and his reputation as a big spender in conjunction with his comments about his dwindling wealth are raising legitimate questions about how long he can keep it up.

Speaking of Maezawa's Twitter account, he also reportedly mentioned his need to finance his famous cash giveaways on the platform, which he has used to grow his substantial follower count – almost 4.3 million strong as of this writing.

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