Tim Sweeney, founder and CEO of Epic Games, has quietly become one of North Carolina’s largest private landowners, but his goal isn’t what you might expect. Over the past decade, he has purchased at least 56,000 acres stretching from the Blue Ridge Mountains to the coast, not for development or profit, but for permanent conservation. His mission began with a painful childhood memory: watching his grandmother’s Virginia farm sold for timber after medical bills mounted, destroying the land he loved during family vacations.
Now Sweeney is using his fortune to prevent similar losses across North Carolina, strategically buying foreclosed and undervalued wilderness after the 2008 economic crash to create biological corridors where rare species can thrive. He has already donated thousands of acres to conservation groups like the Southern Appalachian Highlands Conservancy, including a historic 7,500 acre gift in the Roan Highlands and the entire Hutaff Island barrier island off the coast. His Box Creek Wilderness protects over 7,000 acres of rare plant species, while his work has more than doubled the size of Mount Mitchell State Park. Sweeney’s vision spans decades, focusing on three major conservation corridors that will allow vulnerable wildlife to migrate freely as climate change forces species to seek new habitats in the mountains and foothills of North Carolina.
