No one wants to die. However it seems that it’s mostly powerful people truly believe it’s possible to escape death. Lawrence of Arabia, Walt Disney, and Peter Thiel come to mind as examples. Clearly there’s something about amassing a large amount of power in life that lends itself to believing you can overcome death.
Maybe they've seen in life that if you try you can maybe achieve stuff ? And when you have billion you don't lose anything by spending some of it in high-risk/high-reward projects.
But maybe they've witnessed history. Every king, industrialist, or self-absorbed person has tried exactly the same thing, living forever. I have no problem when any rich person tries to do this, it's just frustrating when they claim that this desire is unique, when "not wanting to die" is probably the most basic desire of just about everyone, and has been through the ages rich and poor.