The #eclipse: Making Money From the Moon
For most people, a solar eclipse is a few minutes spent looking skywards. For a handful of entrepreneurs, investors and business owners, it has become something else: a recurring commercial opportunity. Every few years, millions of people move towards the path of a major eclipse. They book hotel rooms, buy eclipse glasses and look for the best possible vantage point. Around that brief period of darkness sits a surprisingly large economy. Some people have become very good at monetising it.
John Jerit: America’s Eclipse Glasses King
If there is one person who can credibly claim to have made money from the Moon, it is John Jerit.
Jerit founded American Paper Optics in 1990. What began as a niche business producing paper 3D glasses grew into one of the largest specialist eyewear manufacturers in the United States. The company says it has manufactured well over three billion pairs of 3D glasses during its history.
Then came eclipses.
For the April 2024 North American eclipse, American Paper Optics manufactured 75 million eclipse glasses, up from 45 million for the 2017 eclipse. As the event approached, production exceeded one million pairs a day, with customers ranging from government agencies and universities to public libraries and major retailers. The company does not disclose its profits, but eclipses have transformed what was once an unusual niche product into an enormous periodic business.
Jerit lives in Tennessee and his company operates from Bartlett, near Memphis. The spoils of his entrepreneurial career appear not in yachts or private islands, but in art. Jerit has become a significant collector of outsider, visionary and folk art. His collection includes works by Henry Darger, Martín Ramírez and Howard Finster, among the most sought-after names in self-taught American art. The Moon did more than create a market for glasses. It became part of an entrepreneurial career that has also produced one of the more unusual private art collections in the American South. The Motel Millionaires of the Dakotas.
The eclipse economy is also a hotel story.
When millions of people head towards the same narrow corridor at roughly the same time, hotel rooms suddenly become an unusually scarce commodity. That was demonstrated again during the 2024 North American eclipse, when hotels in and around the path of totality experienced extraordinary demand and, in some locations, dramatically higher room rates. The story leads to the Dakotas. Ron Rivett co-founded Super 8 Motels in Aberdeen, South Dakota, in 1974. The chain expanded to around 1,000 locations before being sold for $125 million in 1993. Rivett died in 2023 at the age of 83.The bigger fortune belongs to fellow hotel entrepreneur Gary Tharaldson. Tharaldson bought his first Super 8 motel in Valley City, North Dakota, in 1982 and went on to build, own and operate more than 480 hotels. In 2006, he sold 130 properties to Goldman Sachs for about $1.2 billion. Forbes currently estimates his fortune at approximately $1.2 billion. For wealth managers, South Dakota is usually associated with domestic trusts and dynasty planning. In this case, the Dakotas also feature in a different kind of wealth story: the roadside motel empire.
The Moon Family of Dallas
No relation to celestial events, but too perfect a name to ignore. David Moon and his wife In Sun Moon founded Sam Moon Trading Co. in Texas in the 1980s, selling things like handbags and jewellery. What began as a retail and wholesale business, selling things like handbags and jewellery, gradually expanded into commercial real estate, mixed-use developments and hospitality. Today, the family-owned Sam Moon Group has interests in hotels, retail centres, golf facilities and property development.
David Moon remains chairman. Samuel Moon serves as president. One of the family’s flagship investments is the JW Marriott Dallas Arts District. The 267-room luxury hotel opened in July 2023. By early 2024, Sam Moon Group was exploring a possible sale, with reports suggesting the property could fetch as much as $190 million. It had cost more than $125 million to develop. When eclipse visitors descended on Texas in 2024, Dallas became one of the country’s most sought-after destinations. Hotels benefited accordingly. The eclipse did not create the Moon family’s wealth. Their wealth came from successfully moving from retail into property and hospitality, then owning the sort of premium assets that become especially valuable when a city suddenly becomes a destination.
Miami’s Eclipse Cruise Billionaires
Perhaps the most imaginative commercial play came from Miami. For the Great American Eclipse of 2017, Royal Caribbean decided not to wait for travellers to find the eclipse. Instead, it took travellers to it. The company’s Oasis of the Seas sailed along the path of totality, giving passengers an unobstructed view from the Atlantic. Guests attended eclipse-themed events and watched the phenomenon from the ship. The entertainment included Welsh singer Bonnie Tyler performing Total Eclipse of the Heart with the band DNCE.
There is added poignancy in that detail today.
Tyler died in July this year at the age of 75. More than four decades after its release, her signature song remains inseparable from eclipse culture and enjoyed another resurgence around the 2024 eclipse. Behind Royal Caribbean sits one of the travel industry’s quieter family fortunes. The eclipse cruise was only a tiny part of a much larger business. It remains, however, one of the smartest examples of turning a celestial event into a luxury travel product.
Not every story about looking towards the Sun involves making money. Some involve spending it. High above Stanford University near Palo Alto sits the famous Dish, a 150-foot radio telescope that became an important part of Stanford’s pioneering work in radar astronomy and space science. Professor Von R. Eshleman, together with Stanford colleagues Dr Allen Peterson and Ray Leadabrand, founded the Stanford Center for Radar Astronomy in 1962. The centre later oversaw radio experiments between the Dish and NASA’s Pioneer spacecraft, using radio signals to study the solar wind. Eshleman went on to become an important figure in planetary radio science, working on missions including Mariner, Voyager, Galileo and Apollo.
Unlike Memphis, Dallas or Miami, Palo Alto‘s story is not primarily commercial. It is a reminder that long before celestial events became tourism products and marketing opportunities, looking towards the Sun and the planets was important enough to justify major investment in scientific infrastructure.
The eclipse economy is built on a simple fact.
Millions of people want to experience the same thing at the same time.
John Jerit sold the glasses.
Gary Tharaldson built the motel empire.
The Moon family built the luxury hotels.
Royal Caribbean sold the journey.
Stanford built the telescope.
And today, as BBC News advised viewers struggling to find sold-out eclipse glasses to make simple pinhole projectors from card and paper, there was a reminder that not everyone needs a luxury cruise, a hotel suite or a private collection of folk art to enjoy the spectacle. At one end of the story sits a Memphis entrepreneur manufacturing tens of millions of eclipse glasses and a cruise heir worth billions.
At the other is somebody standing in a back garden with a sheet of cardboard and a biro.
Different fortunes. Different ambitions. Same celestial event.
In the path of totality, for a few minutes, the Moon blocks out the Sun.
For a select group of entrepreneurs and investors, it also creates business.
Today’s solar eclipse begins at about 6.17pm in London, Bristol and Cardiff, reaching maximum eclipse at about 7.13pm. London will experience a deep partial eclipse, with more than 90 per cent of the Sun obscured at maximum.
The UK will see a partial eclipse rather than totality. The path of totality crosses Greenland, Iceland and Spain, while much of North America will also experience a partial eclipse. In Anchorage, Alaska, the eclipse will peak at about 8.21am local time. In Washington, DC, it will peak at about 1.53pm EDT.
For most people, it will simply be a reason to look up.
For others, history suggests, there will always be a way to turn the Moon into money.
Key Takeaways
- Solar eclipses create unique business opportunities for entrepreneurs, leading to a thriving economy around these events.
- John Jerit, known for eclipse glasses, turned a niche business into a major success, producing millions of glasses for each eclipse.
- Hotels experience extraordinary demand during eclipses, exemplified by Gary Tharaldson’s extensive motel empire and the Moon family’s luxury hotels.
- Royal Caribbean capitalised on eclipses by offering themed cruises, showcasing the innovative ways businesses can profit from celestial events.
- The eclipse economy thrives on shared experiences, showing how some find financial success while others simply enjoy the spectacle.
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