Japanese billionaire Yusaku Maezawa calls off girlfriend search
Japanese tycoon Yusaku Maezawa has cancelled his search for a “life partner” to take to the moon.
The billionaire made headlines last September when it was announced that he will be the first private passenger on Elon Musk’s Space X moon flights.
A documentary about Maezawa’s search for a girlfriend was due to be streamed on Japanese streaming service AbemaTV.
Over 27,000 women responded to Maezawa’s advertisement which listed a number of conditions and criteria including “an interest in going to space”.
In a series of tweets, Maezawa said he had decided to cancel the documentary because he had “mixed feelings” about participating.
It is not the first time Maezawa has embarked on an attention-seeking stunt. Last year he pledged to share 100m yen (£701,200) between 100 randomly selected people who shared his tweet.
It became the site’s most re-tweeted post of all time.
The entrepreneur has a net worth of $3.6bn, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index. He resigned from the management team of his online fashion business Zozo after selling a 30 per cent stake to Yahoo Japan, which is owned by Softbank, for $2.3bn.
It has not been reported how much Maezawa paid for the ticket to space but SpaceX owner Elon Musk said it was “a lot of money”. The journey is planned for 2023.