According to a recent report from Fox News, Oscar-winning filmmaker Steven Spielberg's private jet has burned around $116,000 worth of jet fuel in two months. The report has been based on the aircraft's flight track data by ADS-B Exchange and a Twitter-bot page called Celebrity Jets, which compiles such flight data of celebrities' private jets.
As per the data cited by Fox News, Spielberg's private flights since June 23 have resulted in over 17,000 miles of air travel over the course of 16 trips. However, the publication's article by Thomas Catenacci claimed that the estimate might not be precise as the compiled data lacked information on at least three flights.
This report has resulted in harsh criticism of the acclaimed director and producer. A legion of tweets called out Spielberg over his private jet's fuel usage, as the 75-year-old has previously expressed his concerns over global warming and climate change. One such tweet by a user named Deborah (@dkcwillis) labeled him a 'hypocrite' in response to the recent revelations.
How much fuel did Steven Spielberg's private jet burn in two months?
According to the report from Fox News, Steven Spielberg's Gulfstream G650 has burned over 36,000 gallons (or 48 tons+) of jet fuel over the 16 trips. The aforementioned estimate was based on the $116,000 figure reported by Fox News ($116,000 divided by the current cost of jet fuel per gallon, i.e., $3.21).
Meanwhile, on August 19, the Celebrity Jets bot Twitter account reported that Steven Spielberg's private jet burned around 403 gallons (1,525 liters) on a flight from Martha's Vineyard (Massachusetts) to Teterboro Airport in New Jersey. The bot further claimed that the flight path of just over 184 miles (160 nautical miles) resulted in over four tons of CO2 emissions. The fuel for that trip would have cost around $2,650.
Netizens slam Steven Spielberg over his private jet usage
Considering that the director has previously expressed his concern about global warming, a slew of tweets have criticized this report of Spielberg's high CO2 emission from his private jet.
According to the DailyMail, in a 2018 interview during the promotion of Ready Player One, Spielberg said:
"I'm terrified of global warming. Global warming is a scientific reality it's not a political trick, it's a true piece of real measurable quantifiable since. And people have to come around to believing that were are going to have a confrontation with destiny unless we do something about it today. I think we have to blame everybody that is just, when you are not mindful of something that could pose a danger to your children and grandchildren. Then you just go blithely through life with aerosol cans and doing all sorts of things that are depleting the ozone."
This is why numerous individuals called out the filmmaker and labeled him as a 'hypocrite.' Many people also targeted Steven Spielberg, whose comments implied that he was a climate activist.
Yard's claims of CO2 emissions by Steven Spielberg's flight
According to the compilation of celebrities' CO2 emissions from private jet usage by digital marketing agency Yard, Steven Spielberg ranked sixth out of a list of ten celebs. The iconic filmmaker even ranked higher than Kim Kardashian, who has also been heavily criticized over her use of private jets. The study reported his "jet taking 61 flights this year and emitting 4,465 tonnes of CO2 – 637.9 times more than the average person's annual emissions."
It must be noted that the abovementioned data compiled by Yard had also been sourced from ADS-B Exchange and included the flight data from January 1 to July 20, 2022.
They further revealed that the average flight time of the Jurassic Park director was around an hour and 47 minutes, which is just over 107 minutes. However, the shortest recorded flight in that period was 18 minutes, which was from Amsterdam to Rotterdam. However, this might have been a flight to transport the aircraft to a different hangar or a possible maintenance flight.