Why is this a surprise? There's a point at which money no longer makes sense - both to the people without it as well as the people with it.
There are many reasons for spending relatively incomprehensible amounts of money for something. One is to show others that you can; it's a demonstration of just how wealthy you are. Another is to try to make something special of the money that otherwise has reached a level of being useless/pointless.
Think a bit in terms of a normal human lifetime. If you aspire to be rich, what amount of money defines that level? Once you reach a level where you can own and operate more properties, vehicles, and even employees than you can even remember, what does the excess money represent?
Ok, this is an absurd analogy. But as technical people, imagine building a multi-petabyte storage device. Practically no private individual has such a thing. Using your intellect, experience, and perhaps ingenuity you can have such a thing. Then what? You store all the porn you have time to download. You save every movie you ever thought about watching. You take 1000 photos every time you go out. It's thrilling! But how much of it do you ever really go back and enjoy?
Frankly, unless the buyer places it in a public museum, I judge it as a hollow effort to find value in excess (which will last about three months). Humans are great at acclimating to new and better, and soon we need more. What else is there?