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?
The guy’s a typical phony of the “Don’t do what I do; just do what I say stripe”. People like him are regular attendees at climate conferences where they know they won’t achieve anything but won’t pass up a usually-government-sponsored free ride and lunch. The general population has learned to ignore people of his ilk long ago.
The bottom line: Mike’s kids are more important than yours.
Heh, Heh, Heh…
Doesn’t he also own an island?
For some time now I’ve started to wonder if these politicians, billionaires and celebrities are really running a massive gaslight operation to purposely sabotage the climate change agenda they otherwise zealously promote. Of course, any genuinely serious effort at eliminating CO2 from the economy would be decimating to their wealth, political power and lifestyles which they obviously would not want to sacrifice. So they transparently participate in this hypocritical behavior that makes it difficult to impossible for any thinking individual to take them and their rhetoric the least bit seriously.
Why? It’s win-win for them. They know that the controversy that they themselves generate with this transparently hypocritical behavior sabotages the agenda so that they won’t ever have to sacrifice their wealth, influence or lifestyles. But they will get to keep their virtue signaling points with their hip peers and the useful idiots who do continue to take them seriously. It’s even better for those who get to profit from the agenda through political power, subsidies or enforced monopolies.
As long as “climate change” remains a religion to a gullible critical mass, the scam will continue and they will continue to be rich, hip & popular without meaningful consequence.