Experts are warning that if a nuclear war were to break out, it could wipe out most of the world’s population in just over an hour. According to Annie Jacobsen, a respected American journalist and author who has studied nuclear warfare in detail, as many as five billion people could die within the first 72 minutes of a full-scale nuclear conflict.
Jacobsen, who has won a Pulitzer Prize and written a book called Nuclear War: A Scenario, explained this during a podcast interview on The Diary of a CEO. Her book describes how a nuclear war could start and unfold minute by minute. The scenario is so realistic and frightening that it reportedly motivated some billionaires to secretly build underground bunkers to protect themselves.
Instead of using their power and money to help stop such a disaster from ever happening, Jacobsen says many of these billionaires were more focused on figuring out how fast they could escape to safety. One of the main concerns they had was how quickly their private jets, like the G5, could fly them to safe zones especially New Zealand.
Jacobsen believes that only two areas in the entire world might remain relatively safe during a nuclear war: New Zealand and certain parts of Australia. These regions could be less affected by the global chaos and fallout because of their remote locations and climate patterns.
The bigger danger after the blasts, according to Jacobsen, would be the collapse of farming and food production. A nuclear war would likely lead to what’s called a “nuclear winter” a condition where the skies fill with smoke and block sunlight, causing temperatures to drop and crops to fail around the world. This agricultural collapse is what would lead to billions of deaths from starvation and cold.
In some remote parts of New Zealand and Australia, however, people might still be able to survive, though it would mean going back to a basic way of life, like hunting and gathering. That’s why Jacobsen says these are the spots where some billionaires are quietly preparing for the worst, hoping to ride out the aftermath underground while the rest of the world suffers.
Former CIA agent Andrew Bustamante, who also spoke on the same podcast, shared that he no longer feels secure living in the United States. While he didn’t reveal where he plans to move, he said he’s actively preparing to relocate his family to what he calls a “safe haven” somewhere in the world.
His goal is to live in a place where his children can grow up as global citizens people connected to the world, not isolated by national borders. Bustamante originally planned to make this move by 2030, but due to growing concerns, he now hopes to leave the U.S. by 2026.
