You’ll probably never hear a plane-with-only-two-parachutes joke featuring a crying baby, a chatty grandma, and the CEO of a Fortune 500 company. That’s because the besuited bunch is increasingly flying private—even as employers cut back on other lavish benefits for top executives.
The majority of Fortune 500 CEOs are now flying private on the company dime, according to the executive data firm Equilar. And data shows that company-provided private jet spending soared 19% between 2021 and 2024.
Sky-high spending
Corporate jet expenses at some blue-chip firms continued gaining altitude last year:
Palantir shelled out $17.2 million to whisk its CEO, Alex Karp, around the world for work and personal travel in 2025, far more than the $7.7 million it spent the year before. The steep bill drew investor scrutiny, as Karp owns the aircraft chartered to Palantir.
