Yusaka Maezawa: the punk rocker heading to the moon
Yusaka Maezawa made his fortune in retail before joining the billionaire space race. Now he’s sorting through a million applications to join him in his next jaunt to the stars.

When the Japanese fashion tycoon Yusaka Maezawa returned to earth in December in a Russian Soyuz space capsule – landing in a remote area of Kazakhstan – it capped a banner year for private space travel, following breakthroughs from fellow billionaires Richard Branson, Jeff Bezos and Elon Musk. Maezawa, 46, who travelled with his personal assistant, spent most of the 12-day trip as “a paying guest” on the International Space Station – entertaining his social-media followers by demonstrating how to pee and make tea in zero gravity, and bemoaning his shortage of clean underwear. It was an expensive jaunt, costing $66m. But he views it as just “a practice run”, says Al-Jazeera. In 2023, he plans a “trip around the moon” on Elon Musk’s SpaceX with eight artists in tow.
A one-man national lottery
A born stuntman, who made his money founding the online fashion retailer Zozotown (which was sold to SoftBank subsidiary Yahoo Japan for $2.3bn in 2019), Maezawa is a household name in Japan, not least because of his penchant for doling out “cash giveaways” to his Twitter followers. Three years ago, he notched up a record for the most ever retweets after offering a million yen each to randomly selected people who retweeted the message and followed him – in essence becoming a one-man national lottery in exchange for four million followers.
Still, it was Maezawa’s passion for contemporary art that put him on the international stage, says the Financial Times. During one buying spree in New York in 2017, he caused a sensation by snapping up a Jean-Michel Basquiat painting for more than $110m – setting a record auction price for an American artist. Maezawa, who was once in a punk band, later observed that he felt an affinity with the late “enfant terrible” of US art who, like him, “rose up from the streets”.
MoneyWeek
Subscribe to MoneyWeek today and get your first six magazine issues absolutely FREE

Sign up to Money Morning
Don't miss the latest investment and personal finances news, market analysis, plus money-saving tips with our free twice-daily newsletter
Don't miss the latest investment and personal finances news, market analysis, plus money-saving tips with our free twice-daily newsletter
Maezawa has been “rocking” the Japanese business world for decades, says The Daily Beast. Born in the Chiba prefecture in 1975, he was educated at the renowned Waseda Jitugyo High school, but rejected the conventional path to life as a white-collar “salaryman” “after seeing all those tired faces on my morning commutes”. Instead, he travelled to the US and began collecting CDs and records – a hobby that became the basis of his first business. On returning to Japan in 1995, Maezawa started a mail-order music import business, Start Today, running it in tandem with his own recording career. But the company’s rapid growth after adding an online clothes line in the early Noughties became all pre-occupying. After severing the music arm in 2007, Start Today listed in Tokyo and, by 2010, had reinvented itself as a pioneering “virtual shopping mall”, says the FT. The cash poured in. By 2017, the renamed Zozotown had expanded to 7,300 brands.
Davos in space
Maezawa made his mark as an innovator, introducing “the Zozosuit” – a spandex polka-dot bodysuit designed to gauge the wearer’s body shape to tackle the perennial online problem of how you “try before you buy”. It was a flop: in 2018 Zozo reported a 20% fall in profits amid analyst predictions of slowing growth. Some might count Maezawa fortunate that SoftBank’s ambition to take on Amazon enabled him to cash in Zozo the following year.
Now fully focused on his new role as a space pioneer, Maezawa is currently sorting through “a million” applications to select his fellow travellers for the SpaceX moon trip, says The Japan Times. He may yet ditch the artists for more lofty companions. “You begin to think about world leaders getting together in space…”
Get the latest financial news, insights and expert analysis from our award-winning MoneyWeek team, to help you understand what really matters when it comes to your finances.
Jane writes profiles for MoneyWeek and is city editor of The Week. A former British Society of Magazine Editors editor of the year, she cut her teeth in journalism editing The Daily Telegraph’s Letters page and writing gossip for the London Evening Standard – while contributing to a kaleidoscopic range of business magazines including Personnel Today, Edge, Microscope, Computing, PC Business World, and Business & Finance.
She has edited corporate publications for accountants BDO, business psychologists YSC Consulting, and the law firm Stephenson Harwood – also enjoying a stint as a researcher for the due diligence department of a global risk advisory firm.
Her sole book to date, Stay or Go? (2016), rehearsed the arguments on both sides of the EU referendum.
She lives in north London, has a degree in modern history from Trinity College, Oxford, and is currently learning to play the drums.
-
What is the 7 year inheritance tax rule and how does it help cut your bill?
Speculation is rife chancellor Rachel Reeves has plans to target inheritance tax once again in her upcoming Budget. But the 7 year inheritance tax rule can save you thousands - here’s how it works.
-
HMRC confirms crypto ETN ISA rules
With crypto ETNs now technically available for UK retail investors, HMRC has confirmed they can be held in an ISA – but there’s a complication
-
Pierre-Édouard Stérin wants to make France great again
Conservative billionaire Pierre-Édouard Stérin is seeking to lead a political and spiritual renaissance across the Channel. The planning looks meticulous
-
Jair Bolsonaro, the 'Trump of the Tropics', sentenced to 27 years in prison for staging a coup in Brazil
Jair Bolsonaro, the US president’s friend and fellow right-wing populist, has been handed a 27-year prison sentence in Brazil. But the drama looks far from over
-
Prabowo Subianto: Indonesia’s Deng Xiaoping
Prabowo Subianto, like his Chinese hero, is taking power in his 70s with big ambitions for his country. Yet many view his return to politics with dread
-
Giorgio Armani: the irreplaceable Il Signore
Giorgio Armani started his fashion business in 1975 and built it into the world’s largest private luxury brand. Where can it go without him?
-
Crypto mogul Do Kwon pleads guilty to fraud
South Korean entrepreneur Do Kwon, who used to call critics cockroaches, faces a long spell in jail after pleading guilty to fraud relating to the collapse of two digital coins
-
The rise of Robin Zeng: China’s billionaire battery king
Robin Zeng, a pioneer in EV batteries, is vying with Li Ka-shing for the title of Hong Kong’s richest person. He is typical of a new kind of tycoon in China
-
Scotland's former first minister Nicola Sturgeon leaves behind a toxic legacy
On the left, Nicola Sturgeon is seen as something of a political hero. That makes sense… but only if you exclude her actual record in office
-
Sachin Dev Duggal's Builder.ai – the first big bust of the AI boom
Sachin Dev Duggal's Builder.ai start-up claimed it could use artificial intelligence to build apps. Its revenues turned out to be equally artificial