"The moon trip crew has been decided! Crew for Moon Trip Selected!!" Maezawa said via Twitter on Thursday.
Maezawa, a 47-year-old fashion tycoon, said the exact cost of the trip is not disclosed but when asked whether is in the vicinity of $80 million, he answered "pretty much."
The crew will consist of nine members and two back-ups and they come from a wide variety of backgrounds - American, British, Irish, Japanese, South Korean, Indian and Czech. The majority of them are from the entertainment industry and include DJ and producer Steve Aoki, musician Choi Seung Hyun, photographer Karim Iliya, dancer Miyu and actor Dev Joshi.
All members of the crew have a very high number of followers - DJ Aoki has in excess of 10 million followers - on their social media accounts and it is expected that their trip will generate huge publicity .
The crew members will now start training and are expected to fly to the moon sometimes in 2023.
In March 2021, Maezawa announced a global contest to select eight crew members to join him in a private lunar mission aboard SpaceX’s Starship, but said he preferred representatives of "creative professions."
In 2018, Maezawa became the first man to book a seat onboard the lunar spaceship that is currently being developed by SpaceX. The project, dubbed dearMoon, is expected to be the first private and commercial spaceflight with humans beyond Earth's orbit.