Even the second richest man in the world needs to slum it sometimes.
Bernard Arnault, the French CEO of luxury brand LVMH, admitted that he sold the company’s private jet recently, renting private airlines to travel instead.
The reason? Some Twitter accounts have been tracking his travel, and Arnault didn’t like the lack of privacy.
“Indeed, with all these stories, the group had a plane, and we sold it,” Arnault said in a podcast interview with Radio Classique. “The result now is that no one can see where I go because I rent planes when I use private planes.”
Arnault may not be a household name like Elon Musk or Jeff Bezos, but he is worth $133 billion, according to Bloomberg’s Billionaire Index.
Like other big spenders, he has been the target of several Twitter accounts focused on what they perceive as wasteful air travel.
Now he is trying to fly below the Twitter radar.
Airlines and Co2 Emissions
Climate scientists have said that airlines are responsible for 2.4 percent (around 1 billion tons) of the annual human-generated Co2 emissions. And a report by Oxfam called Confront Carbon Inequality, found that the richest one percent of people were responsible for 15 percent of emissions between 1990 and 2015 – that’s more than twice that of the poorest half of humanity (7 percent).
As a result, private jets have become the target of many social media activists. One Twitter account called Celebrity Jets tracks the private air travel of such celebs as Kylie Jenner, Taylor Swift, and Drake.
Drake’s Jet Landed in Toronto, Ontario, CA. pic.twitter.com/xhk3TbgDj2
— Celebrity Jets (@CelebJets) October 17, 2022
Another Twitter account called @laviondebernard (Bernard’s Plane) had been tracking the travel of Bernard Arnault until he sold his plane last September.
Turns out the travel habits of the rich and famous are a big controversy in France, with the French Transport Minister even proposing to ban or tax private jets.
Arnault and Kanye West
This is not the first time Arnault has been in the headlines this month. The otherwise obscure billionaire, at least to Americans, was thrust into the spotlight when Kanye West accused him on Instagram of killing his best friend. The accusation referred to the death of Off-White founder Virgil Abloh, who died last year from cancer.
