Tim Sweeney, the billionaire who created Epic Games and Fortnite, has been buying massive areas of land in North Carolina. But he is not trying to build anything on it. He is not trying to flip it for profit either. He is buying it to protect it from being destroyed. In the last ten years, he has bought more than forty thousand acres of forests and untouched wilderness.
Daily Dot reported that Sweeney has been doing all of this quietly. He wants to save important natural areas before construction companies move in. He focuses on land that has rare wildlife or plants that need protection.
He has already given seven thousand acres to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and another seven thousand five hundred acres to the Southern Appalachian Highlands Conservancy. This year, he also worked with The Conservation Fund to help North Carolina expand Mount Mitchell State Park by selling some of his land to the state. Right now, he owns fifty four thousand acres across fifteen counties.
Sweeney has been doing this for more than a decade. He buys land when the economy is weak and prices are lower. He said most of his big conservation breakthroughs happened when land was more affordable. Since twenty twenty one, prices have gone up a lot, so now his goal is to make sure the land he already owns stays protected forever.
He does not just buy land and walk away. He tries to work with families who have lived there for generations. He said that when long time local families wanted land next to theirs, he helped them get it as long as it did not harm the natural areas he was trying to save. If his conservation plans did not fit well in certain spots, he sold that land back to local people.
What Sweeney is doing is one of the biggest private conservation efforts North Carolina has seen in many years. He made his money from video games and tech, but now he is using it to protect nature. The forests he saves will not be cut down. They will not become malls or housing colonies. They will stay wild for animals and for people who will enjoy them in the future.
His work shows what can happen when someone with a lot of money chooses to use it for something good. This matters even more now because public funding for the environment is not always enough. By working with government groups and conservation organizations, Sweeney has found a way to save huge areas of wilderness before they disappear forever.