Tokyo, Jan. 7 (BUS): “Space Now” is what Japanese billionaire Yusaku Maezawa has been tweeting for years. Finally he really did, from the International Space Station, according to the Associated Press.
“The space market holds a lot of potential,” he said Friday at the Foreign Correspondents Club in Tokyo, his first press conference in Japan after returning to Earth before Christmas.
Maezawa, who heads a company called Start Today, is preparing to invest in several companies that may evolve from ongoing research by NASA, the Japanese equivalent called JAXA and others.
But first he wants to recover from his last celestial adventure: Coming back to life by gravity has proven heavier than he expected, he said.
Maezawa, 46, blasted off in a Russian Soyuz spacecraft with a Russian cosmonaut on December 8, becoming the first self-propelled tourist to visit the station since 2009.
Returning to Earth after spending 12 days in the orbital position, he captured videos of himself cruising through weightlessness, molding water droplets into bubbles and tossing a golf ball that drifted toward a flag in the spacecraft.
He said he’d like to tweet the “Moon Now” next. He’s booked an orbit around the Moon aboard Tesla CEO Elon Musk’s spacecraft, scheduled for the next few years, possibly as early as next year.
“I don’t know when exactly I should tweet this,” he said, because he wouldn’t land on the moon. “Maybe when we get to the back side of the moon.”
Maezawa has more than 11 million followers on Twitter and has emerged as a brilliant celebrity known for his liberal management style which is rare in the established business world committed to Japan.
He ran a CD import company and played in a rock band before starting an online fashion business in 1998. Known for dating movie stars, Maezawa has been admired and ridiculed for his lavish purchases, including Stradivarius violins and artwork by Jean-Michel Basquiat and Andy Warhol.
In 2019, Maezawa resigned as CEO of e-commerce company Zozo Inc. To dedicate his time to space travel, he sold his company to Yahoo Japan. Forbes magazine estimates his fortune at $1.9 billion.
The amount that Maizawa paid for his trip has been the subject of much speculation and skepticism. Reports have estimated the price at more than $80 million. Mizawa again declined to reveal the cost.
But he said living in space makes him appreciate each day more: the wind, the changing seasons, the smells, and the sushi.
Maezawa hopes that one day world leaders will make the same journey. He said the planet is “100 times more beautiful” than any picture he’s ever seen, and so they might also realize the importance of working together.
“This is my dream,” he said.
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