Even the most powerful man in Silicon Valley has learned that zoning laws don’t bend easily. After four years of complaints, investigations, and furious late-night emails, Mark Zuckerberg was finally forced to shut down an unlicensed private school running inside his lavish Palo Alto campus. The Meta CEO’s secret project, affectionately named after one of the family’s pet chickens, sparked a complete revolt in the neighborhood. The school, known as “Beacon Ben School”, had been operating quietly since 2021, serving about 30 to 40 children in a Montessori-style program.

It all started innocently enough. Neighbors in the exclusive Crescent Park area of ​​Palo Alto began noticing cars arriving every morning to drop off children at Zuckerberg’s residence. What initially looked like a playgroup immediately raised eyebrows. Residents soon realized that the Meta boss was running a full-fledged school, without the necessary city permits.

By 2022, whispers turned into organized outrage. Neighbors accused the city of giving Zuckerberg special treatment and ignoring repeated code violations. “We find it quite remarkable that you are working so hard to meet the needs of one billionaire family while keeping the rest of the neighborhood in the dark,” one angry resident wrote to the city planning department in February, according to 1,665 pages of documents obtained by WIRED.

Years of complaints and construction chaos

The unlicensed school was not the first issue to trouble Crescent Park locals. For nearly a decade, residents had been grappling with continued construction, expanding security measures, and increasing noise levels at the Zuckerberg estate. Meta’s founder had reportedly acquired 11 properties in the area to build his massive complex, which also included private guards who escorted city inspectors.

“This appears to go beyond a homeowner’s desire for safety,” Building Inspection Manager Corwin Peck wrote in a December 2020 email after describing guards in SUVs monitoring their visits.

When formal complaints about the school reached city officials in 2024, tensions rose. One neighbor wrote that the school was expanding “despite numerous neighborhood complaints” and “despite numerous code violation reports”, urging the city to issue a cease-and-desist order.

City diplomacy backfires

To calm the situation, Palo Alto Planning Director Jonathan Latt initially came up with what he described as a “subtle solution” that would allow some academic activities to continue temporarily. That attempt at compromise failed miserably. “Will I or any other homeowner be given the courtesy of a ‘micro solution’ if we have been in violation of city code for more than four years?” An angry resident retaliated.

Behind closed doors, Zuckerberg’s legal team fought to keep the school open. Christine Wade, an attorney with the SSL law firm, argued that the classrooms count as a “reasonable residential use.” The team also explored converting the operation into a state-licensed large family daycare, which would have bypassed local oversight, but that plan never moved forward.

The city finally steps up

By early 2025, the authorities had run out of patience. In March, the city issued a June 30 deadline to close the Beacon Benn school or face legal action. However, neighbors were still skeptical. “Please know that you have not earned our trust,” one resident warned in an email, “and we will take every opportunity to hold the city accountable.”

According to state records, the school officially closed in August 2025, although Metta family spokesman Brian Baker insisted it merely “relocated.” The new site has not been disclosed, leading locals to wonder if the operation has simply moved out of sight.

Palo Alto spokeswoman Meghan Horrigan-Taylor defended the city’s approach, telling WIRED that officials “consistently enforce zoning, building and life safety regulations regardless of who owns the property.”

The Beacon Ben saga is a rare case of a Silicon Valley asset colliding with local bureaucracy and losing out. For Zuckerberg’s neighbors, it’s a satisfying victory after years of noise, traffic and preferential treatment.

The controversy also highlights a broader question hanging over Silicon Valley: When billionaire ambition meets community rules, who wins? For once, it wasn’t a tech titan.