Mon, October 17, 2022
LVMH CEO Bernard Arnault on a private jet on October 11, 2004.Marc DEVILLE/Gamma-Rapho via Getty Images
Bernard Arnault said LVMH sold its private jet after Twitter accounts started tracking it.
The billionaire said he'd started renting private aircraft for his trips instead.
Arnault is one of several billionaires to express concern over jet tracking on social media.
Bernard Arnault, the CEO of LVMH, said on Monday that the luxury-goods company sold its private jet following people's attempts to track the aircraft on social media.
The 73-year-old billionaire said he'd started renting private planes instead. He made the announcement an interview with Radio Classique, which was first reported by Bloomberg. The radio station is owned by LVMH.
"Indeed, with all these stories, the group had a plane and we sold it," Arnault said, according to a Bloomberg translation. "The result now is that no one can see where I go because I rent planes when I use private planes."
Multiple Twitter accounts that track and share publicly available flight data have sprung up over the past year — publicizing the travel activity of people such as Elon Musk and Taylor Swift. Two of the top accounts that track the Louis Vuitton cofounder's flights are @i_fly_Bernard and @laviondebernard. The accounts have a combined following of nearly 100,000 and were both created over the past six months.
Arnault appears to have made the switch to renting jets several weeks ago. In September, @laviondebernard tweeted about the billionaire's lack of recent flight data after noting several weeks earlier that LVMH had de-registered its plane in France.
"Still no word from either Bernard Arnault or LVMH on the subject of private jets," the account tweeted on September 10, according to a Bloomberg translation of the tweet.
Arnault is the second-wealthiest man — surpassing even the Amazon founder Jeff Bezos — with an estimated net worth of $133 billion, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index's estimate. He is the CEO, cofounder, and chair of LVMH and has amassed a luxury-goods empire that includes major names like Tiffany & Co., TAG Heur, and Dom Pérignon.
On Monday, Arnault's son Antoine Arnault defended the company's use of a private jet after his father faced criticism from French media outlets over the jet's influence on carbon emissions. The younger Arnault said a private plane gave executives an edge in the race to be first to a new product or deal.
"Our industry is hypercompetitive," the son said on a TV show, according to an Insider translation. "We haven't found anything better than a private plane to win that race every day and be just a small step ahead of our competitors."
Bernard Arnault is not the only billionaire to come under scrutiny in recent months for private-jet usage. In July, critics slammed Swift after she and her jet topped a list of those causing major carbon emissions. At the time, spokespeople for the music star said the "jet is regularly loaned out to other individuals."
Other public figures have expressed safety concerns over the sharing of flight data on social media. Earlier this year, Musk offered $5,000 to the person behind a Twitter account that tracked his travel, asking the Twitter user to shut it down. He failed to get the account shut down.
"I don't love the idea of being shot by a nutcase," Musk said in a text about the issue, Protocol reported.
Meanwhile, the Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg switched his aircraft after an account started tracking his plane, and the billionaire investor Mark Cuban brokered a deal with a man who tracked and shared his flight data by offering him business advice in exchange for deleting the account.
Translation by Marianne Guenot.
Second Richest Man Sells Jet So People on Twitter Won't Track Him Anymore
Kyle Barr Mon, October 17, 2022
Bernard Arnault, as the world’s second richest man, has become the main target for the campaign against needless private jet trips in France.
Billionaires do seem to love the freedom of the skies, especially when they’re not crammed in with all the riff raff on any public flight. Though at the same time, the uber rich don’t enjoy other people criticizing them for routinely taking short jaunts on private jets while producing hundreds of tons of CO2 in the process.
Bernard Arnault, the CEO of luxury brand LVMH—known for expensive labels like Louis Vuitton—is the world’s second-richest man according to Bloomberg’s Billionaires Index. He currently clocks in at a net worth of $133 billion, beating out Amazon founder Jeff Bezos’ paltry $130 billion. He’s also been harangued on Twitter for his consistent use of private jets. French accounts that use planes’ transponder signals and publicly accessible information have tracked Arnault’s and other rich folks’ use of private jets to reveal just how much wasteful flying time is used by the world’s wealthiest.
In September, the Twitter account laviodebernard (Bernard’s Plane) wrote that Arnault’s plane had been de-registered in France. The account wrote “The LVMH private jet has not been registered in France since September 1, 2022. Still no word from Bernard Arnault or LVMH on the subject of private jets. So Bernard, are we hiding?”
Apparently, that’s just what Arnault has been doing. On the LVMH-owned podcast released Monday, Arnault admitted that the LVMH group “had a plane, and we sold it.” He added: “The result now is that no one can see where I go because I rent planes when I use private planes.”
LVMH did not immediately respond to Gizmodo’s request for comment. The topic of taxing the country’s richest for using private jets has been seen favorably by French lawmakers and some officials like environmental minister Christophe Bechu.
Antoine Arnault, the second scion of the world’s second richest man, a LVMH board member and director of communications for Louis Vuitton, also said during the podcast that other people knowing where their company jet is could give competitors an edge. He also told French news channel 5’s à Vous last week “This plane is a work tool.” As translated by Bloomberg, the younger Arnault added that the company sold the plane over the summer.
Of course, the issue doesn’t just have to do with Arnault alone. Another one of these critical Twitter accounts I Fly Bernard recently pointed out that millionaires’ private planes coming from France have emitted 203 tons of CO2 into the atmosphere through over 48 hours of flights in September alone. On Sept. 18 the account pointed out that the French businessman and CEO of Kering François-Henri Pinault, flew from Venice to Paris, then back to Venice all in one day, cheekily writing “maybe a forgotten phone charger at the hotel?”
The world richest man, Elon Musk, also has a penchant for using his private plane quite an obscene amount. Earlier this year, the Tesla and SpaceX CEO came under fire when transponder signals showed he had flown his $70 million private Gulfstream jet just nine minutes from San Jose to San Francisco.
The billionaire reportedly proposed to buy one of the accounts tracking his jet, called @ElonJet. Musk asked Jack Sweeney, the young man who runs the bot-tracking Twitter account, to take down the account calling it a “security risk.” He even offered to buy the account for a measly $5,000, according to Twitter DMs seen by Protocol. Sweeney asked Musk to add “an extra ‘0’” to that number, but to this day, the tracking account remains.
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