Essay by Eric Worrall
“… so I can run a global business from Australia, and still be a constantly present dad …”
Billionaire climate campaigner Mike Cannon-Brookes defends buying private jet and sponsoring F1 team
Atlassian co-founder says he has ‘extremely rigorous carbon regime’ but makes ‘hard tradeoff’ to run global business and be ‘a constantly present dad’
Graham Readfearn
Fri 14 Mar 2025 15.06 AEDTThe Australian billionaire and outspoken climate advocate Mike Cannon-Brookes has defended buying a private jet and his company’s new sponsorship of the Williams Formula One racing team.
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Cannon-Brookes sought to explain the reasons why he bought the jet and Atlassian’s F1 sponsorship in an almost-500 word post to LinkedIn, hours after the Australian Financial Review had written about the billionaire’s new jet.
Estimated to be worth US$13bn by Forbes, Cannon-Brookes said he bought a private jet “so I can run a global business from Australia, and still be a constantly present dad” which was a “hard, continual tradeoff I’ve decided to make”.
On the sponsorship of the Williams F1 team, Cannon-Brookes said he appreciated “the double take” on the deal because “cars=fuel”.
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“It probably comes as no surprise, I have an extremely rigorous carbon regime for all my flying – including using direct air capture and sustainable fuels for the carbon and contrails, to far exceed my flight footprint,” he wrote.
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Read more: https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2025/mar/14/mike-cannon-brookes-f1-williams-sponsorship-atlassian-private-jet
It’s OK Mike, we at WUWT understand, believe me we do.
Of course, this has implications for the rest of us family guys – we love our kids every bit as much as Mike loves his.
Now that a leading green has set the acceptable family man carbon allowance at the level of CO2 emitted by flying multiple times per week in a private jet and sponsoring an Formula 1 racing team, I think most of us with a little personal sacrifice could match that level of climate activism.
I only have one question.
Mike, back in 2019 your company Atlassian offered paid leave to employees who participate in climate protests. Does this offer still apply to employees who attend a green blockade of your private jet? Or do they have to make sure they blockade someone elses private jet?
Mike just replaced Bill Gates as the world’s top hypocrite jerk. Way to go, great job, you earned it.
John Kerry?
Yesterday’s fish wrap, smothered in ketchup.
Kerry does not own a Jet.
It’s his wives.
His wive also owns the mansions,
which means by Kerrys own logic that he is homeless 🙂
And that’s a tightly run race.
I don’t have a private jet. I guess I’m just an uncommitted, sucky dad.
You could save a lot of time by using a private jet for the 2 miles to work and back.
Yeah, but they take up like four lanes of traffic.
“so I can run a global business from Australia, and still be a constantly present dad”
Hum, might save the planet by bringing the kids and their tudors to Austrailia.
“and still be a constantly present dad”
I thought that responsible alarmists weren’t supposed to be having kids?
Lear jet communists are climate neutral by birth – and so are their kids.
Even their farts are net zero because they are vegan(but only when the cameras are on)
They only release the good ole pre80ies co2 that completely failed to start a greenhouse runaway effect in billions of years at magnitudes higher co2 level.
We peasants on the other hand release the evil co2 that came into existence the very day Lear jet communists abandoned the ice age scare and replaced it with AGW .
Carbon reduction is for peasant scum.
Atlassian Shrugged
It’s a software company. Can’t he video conference ? Not like he has to get to the next tour stop like Taylor Swift. I’m thinking the jet is just to impress chicks and get away from the kids, not visit them more often.
Due to both sides of politics in AU believing CO2 is evil, (but not evil enough to not sell it to anyone outside the country who wants it), Australia will go down the nuclear path.
There is no other option. So, Mr Cannon Brookes’ days as a renewables tycoon (feeding off the public teat) are numbered.
London to a brick he invests in Uranium and/or nuclear power…
Ahhh … the hypocrisy ! What else is there really to say ?
He had to buy his own jet plane because even Jetstar, Tiger and Virgin reckon he looked too scruffy and smelly to sell him an economy seat on any of their planes.
If he was for real he would travel by yacht … not just any yacht but one made from sustainably sourced timber with sails and rigging made from natural fibres
Deep Internal Conflict King.
Some would just use the acronym.
He’s not a king, he is a Knave.
Brilliant!
I don’t know this guy but I don’t like him.
Most of us would have a fraction his carbon footprint so why do we have to do anything
I forgot the /sarc tag 🙂
In a way it is reassuring that human characteristics of greed, power, and self interest emerge despite confirmation of continuing faith in the cause.
In the UK we have a hippy turned multi millionaire called Dale Vince who has made his money from subsidies for wind and solar. He funds Just Stop Oil, the eco vandals who throw paint over things and block roads. He hasn’t bought a plane yet, but has bought a football club.
We bought a corporate jet because less fuel was used to go direct to our small town scattered Australian mines than by commercial, which went to big population centres. It got the name “flying overheads.” Seeing the kids was not a factor. Our outside funding support was not for motor races, but for university scholarships to deserving youngsters. Geoff S
Yes, but you never spent a decade before buying the jet preaching CO2 emissions are evil.
Absolute classic!
Olympic level mental gymnastics!
Special Olympics.
When the two opposites finally collide his head will explode. I should have become a shrink and make a fortune recovering something from the wreckage.
LOL at your American grammar…
“It’s his wives”…
How many “wives” does he have?
Do you mean:
wife’s
as in ‘belonging to a wife’?
Then you put “His wive also owns the mansions”.
There is no such word as “wive”. It’s either “wife” or “wives”.
He’s been married twice, both times to rich women.
He made his money the old fashioned way. He married it.
Well Einstein.
English is my 3rd or 4th language so I did very well with my grammar of a language I never speak.
You,on the other hand,even failed to reply to me correctly and you comment got lost.
But still a thank you for the correction.
Wife,wives,life,lives,theater or theatre.
It’s always a pain in the Biden to memorize such stuff .
It’s always fun when a grammar nazi makes his own petard to hoist himself with.
“theater or theatre”
Not the same comparison.
I know – just one of many chances to embaress oneself with English vs English vs American.
You know the song live is life or lead(pb) and lead but sweat and sweet.
Too many traps..
There is no such word as “wive”. It’s either “wife” or “wives”.
When you have no argument, attack the grammar.
“But it’s OK when we do it.”
From the article:”…including using direct air capture and sustainable fuels for the carbon and contrails, to far exceed my flight footprint,””
I wonder if he counts all the energy used to make sustainable fuels or do the carbon capture? I am skeptical that he can offset his flying with those.
What an absolutely ignorant green/watermelon nutbar! He says the following:
“It probably comes as no surprise, I have an extremely rigorous carbon regime for all my flying – including using direct air capture and sustainable fuels for the carbon and contrails, to far exceed my flight footprint,”
First off, the idiot does not understand that contrails are water, either liquid droplets or ice crystals generated by one of the products of combustion, H2O and CO2. In fact for every kg of jet fuel burned, there is 1.38 kg of water vapor emitted in the exhaust, along with 3.1 kg of CO2. (for those chemically challenged the exhaust mass is higher than the fuel mass because we also consume 3.48 kg of O2 from the air for combustion of 1kg of jet fuel)
Anyway, my point is how is he alleviating the contrails? By sequestering some water deep into the ground? Idiot green nutbar…
And SAF (Sustainable Aviation Fuel) is almost non existent and being phased out because it is so non profitable. And has he really done the math on how much “direct air capture” of CO2 he needs to offset both his business jet and the 3-5 wide body cargo jets that fly all the F1 gear from race to race? That is both 747’s and 777’s are used to transport all the F1 stuff to all of the venues around the world.
Let’s do a thumbnail from real world data: Let’s take a decent long range business jet as example the Gulfstream G550 which burns 2,640 lbs of jet fuel per hour. Let’s take a trans Atlantic flight as our initial yardstick. The G550 will need 8 hours to complete the flight, so 23,768 lbs of fuel.
Now take 3-747 and 2-777 again for an 8 hour flight. 747 burns 18,500 lbs/hr, and 777 burns 14,000 lbs/hr. So we have 444,000 lbs for the 747’s and 224,000 lbs for the 777’s. That is a total of 668,000 lbs of fuel for the cargo planes journey for ONE race.
Now there are 10 F1 teams of which this idiot sponsors one, so divide the cargo fuel by 10. So his cargo contribution is 66,800 lbs plus his bizjet fuel of 23,768 lbs. So his personal fuel consumed per F1 race is 90,568 lbs of JetA. That amounts to 260,761 lbs of CO2 he needs to “direct capture” per each Formula 1 race. There are 24 F1 races per year, so annually he needs to sequester 6.74 million pounds of CO2 for his hobby.
Are there any direct capture systems capable of that volume? Oh and this thumbnail calculation of his carbon footprint does not include the private jets of his drivers, the airliner fuel for the crews, nor the fuel burned by the cars. Nor the hundreds of private jets of F1 fans attending the races, etc, etc.
His contribution easily exceeds several tens of millions of pounds of CO2 for his indulgence per year.
CO2 is not a climate knob, nor is is harmful. It is the essence of LIFE and without it there would be no plant or animal life on this planet.
Well done!
Cannon-Brooks is a climate knob
‘Knob’ is commonly used as a playful insult in British English, similar to calling someone a ‘jerk’ or ‘idiot.’ For example, if someone is being annoying or silly, you might playfully say, ‘Stop being such a knob!’
So we can confidently call him a Climate Knob?
Climate Control Knob.
D Boss,
What a lovely analysis. Thank you.
BTW, the Williams team with Atlassian came in 4th, 12 seconds behind, in the first round of the 2025 Formula One year at Melbourne, ended an hour ago. Geoff S.
So this slid below “pretend there is no obvious mismatch“ into “yes, but we do some lazy weasel dance about it” band.
He shares a deep internal conflict with the man whose mother in law got killed driving his new Ferrari.
My, isn’t he special. Apparently just flying first class on a commercial airliner that “was going there anyway” doesn’t allow him to be present enough as a dad; only a private jet will do. You’d think he could at least go in halves with Leonardo DiCaprio since they’re probably both going to all that same “climate awareness” junkets anyway. And think of all the dad cred he could earn with his kids by jetting with Leo to multiple New Years parties in different timezones.
The rank hypocrisy of so-called climate activists has long sense ceased to be news; it is simply expected.
We need a new derisive phrase for people like Mr. Cannon-Brookes; “Limousine Liberal” just doesn’t convey the appropriate degree of contempt. “jet set jihadi” perhaps?
Alan, I’m deeply concerned that, after all these years, you haven’t progressed to the next level of Climate Denialist. What seems to be the holdup?
He’s embracing his inner hypocrite.
Eric,
What a wonderful story,esp. the paid climate activitsts bit. Many thanks…