Billionaires from Jeff Bezos, Sam Altman to Peter Thiel are betting on longevity to cheat death

For most of human history, death had one great advantage. Nobody could negotiate with it.

Kings died. Emperors died. Billionaires, had they existed, would have died too. No amount of gold, land or political power could buy a way out.

That certainty is now being challenged by a peculiar alliance of Silicon Valley billionaires, longevity entrepreneurs and powerful political leaders who are betting that technology might eventually do what religion, alchemy and medicine never quite managed — push death back.


The fantasy ranges from the relatively sensible — living healthier for longer — to the spectacularly ambitious, including reversing biological ageing, replacing failing organs and, eventually, achieving something resembling immortality.

Also Read: Tech billionaires are obsessed with living longer, and a new business frontier

From “live longer” to “don’t die”

The most colourful face of the longevity movement is Bryan Johnson, the tech entrepreneur who has reportedly spent millions of dollars a year trying to make his body younger.

But Johnson is hardly alone. From biotech investments to experimental treatments and wearable technology, some of the world's richest people are pursuing very different versions of the same basic idea: what if ageing could be slowed, reversed or eventually defeated?

Bryan Johnson: The billionaire who says “Don’t die”

Johnson has turned longevity into a full-time personal experiment.

He reportedly spends around $2 million a year on his health regime, tracking hundreds of biomarkers through blood tests, imaging, wearables and other measurements. His Blueprint programme combines strict nutrition, exercise, supplements and sleep optimisation, with the stated goal of slowing — and eventually reversing — biological ageing.

Johnson has also experimented with plasma treatments, including a period when he received plasma from his teenage son. He eventually stopped the treatment.

His ambition is perhaps best summed up by the slogan attached to his longevity project: “Don’t die.”

That makes Johnson the most extreme example of a broader movement. But others are taking a more conventional route: fund the science and wait for it to work.

Sam Altman: A $180 million bet on longer life

OpenAI CEO Sam Altman has put $180 million of his own money into Retro Biosciences, a biotech company pursuing technologies aimed at adding years of healthy life.

Retro's stated ambition is to add 10 healthy years to the human lifespan.

Altman has also reportedly taken metformin as part of an anti-ageing regimen, although evidence that the diabetes drug can extend lifespan in healthy people remains uncertain.

His approach is less about becoming biologically 18 again and more about betting that cellular biology will eventually make ageing itself more manageable.

Jeff Bezos: Betting on cellular rejuvenation

Jeff Bezos is among the major funders of Altos Labs, a biotech company working on cellular rejuvenation.

The company's research focuses on restoring cell health and resilience, with the broader ambition of reversing disease, injury and age-related decline.

The idea is considerably more grounded than the promise of immortality. If scientists can make old or damaged cells behave more like younger ones, they may eventually be able to extend the number of years people remain healthy.

Much of the serious longevity field is not actually trying to make people live forever. It is trying to make the last decades of life less dominated by disease and physical decline.

Peter Thiel: The billionaire who wants to defeat death

Few Silicon Valley billionaires have been as explicit about mortality as former PayPal CEO Peter Thiel.

Thiel has invested heavily in longevity research and helped seed a broader Silicon Valley ecosystem around life extension. He has also spoken about the possibility of using young blood plasma to extend life.

And he has signed up for cryonic preservation — essentially betting that future science might one day be able to revive his frozen body.

Thiel has argued that death should not simply be accepted as an unavoidable fact of nature. In other words, he treats mortality less like a law of physics and more like a problem waiting for a sufficiently determined engineer.

Elon Musk: “Semi-immortality” is a solvable problem

Elon Musk has offered perhaps the most striking description of the technological approach to longevity.

Speaking to futurist Peter Diamandis, Musk said “semi-immortality is an extremely solvable problem.” He argued that humans are effectively programmed to die and that changing that biological programming could allow people to live longer.

Musk's comments put longevity in the same technological framework that has shaped much of his broader worldview: if a problem can be understood as a system, perhaps it can eventually be engineered away.

Deepinder Goyal: India's billionaire biohacker

India has its own version of this increasingly obsessive approach to the body.

Deepinder Goyal, the billionaire founder of Eternal — formerly Zomato — is preparing to launch Temple, a tiny wearable designed to sit on the side of the forehead and measure what he describes as the body's metabolic state in real time.

Goyal told Bloomberg in July that Temple would initially launch as a wellness device, backed by peer-reviewed studies. The device is expected to cost around $1,000 and is aimed less at the mass market than at athletes, executives and founders — people already willing to spend heavily on tracking sleep, fitness and recovery.

He said the project began as a personal science experiment to understand cerebral blood flow. His team subsequently identified what he calls “entropy”, a biomarker that he says correlates with metabolic rate and could provide insights into stress, meditation, recovery, sleep and exercise.

The science is still awaiting independent validation, and Temple has not received medical regulatory approval.

Goyal has described Temple as something he is primarily building for himself, with the business being a “side effect” of the experiment.

Peter Diamandis: Betting $101 million on healthspan

Peter Diamandis has taken a more institutional approach.

In 2023, the futurist and entrepreneur launched XPRIZE Healthspan, a seven-year competition offering $101 million to researchers who can develop an accessible therapy capable of restoring muscle, cognition and immune function in older people.

The goal is not simply to make people live longer. It is to extend healthspan — the years people can remain healthy and function independently.

Dave Asprey and Gary Brecka: The biohacking business

Then there is the booming industry built around people who don't necessarily want to rewrite human biology but do want to optimise every available variable.

Dave Asprey, founder of Bulletproof and Upgrade Labs, has built businesses around supplements, specialist training, cryotherapy and red-light treatments. His approach sits firmly on the biohacking end of the longevity spectrum.

Gary Brecka, a self-described human biologist and longevity expert, takes a data-heavy approach. He works with celebrity clients including Mel Gibson and Mark Wahlberg and stresses one message above all others: “Test, don't guess.”

Brecka argues that people can make meaningful improvements simply by understanding their own biomarkers and acting on deficiencies before they become serious problems.

It is a considerably less futuristic proposition than immortality. But it is also far easier to sell.

But money changes the question

The longevity industry is already big business.

The i Paper cited research estimating that the global longevity market could grow from $27 billion in 2025 to $67 billion by 2035.

There are hundreds of longevity centres offering everything from cold therapy to infrared treatments, while high-end clinics can charge tens of thousands of pounds a year for extensive testing and personalised interventions.

If radical life extension works, it is unlikely to arrive on day one as a universal public service.

The first beneficiaries may be the people who can afford personalised medicine, experimental therapies, elite doctors and years of monitoring.

That makes the immortality race about more than science. It is also about inequality and power.

The rich may be able to buy more time. They may even help develop technologies that eventually give everyone healthier, longer lives.

But immortality? For the moment, even the world's richest people are still waiting for their biggest investment to pay off.

And death, inconveniently, remains undefeated.