An expose by Business Insider has revealed that Rob Wiesenthal, the founder and CEO of helicopter and jet sharing service Blade, posed as a spokesperson for the company using the name Simon McLaren.
In a statement to Bloomberg, Wiesenthal explained, “When we were a small company, everyone had to wear many hats. When it was appropriate for a spokesperson to respond to a press inquiry rather than the CEO, given that we did not have a spokesperson, we used the pseudonym typically in email communications.”
Wiesenthal added that his answers to the media were factual, none-the-less and the practiced stopped before Blade became publicly traded.
In addition to its helicopter-sharing, Blade operates by-the-seat private jet routes seasonally between New York and Miami and Aspen.
The blade is now publicly traded after a SPAC merger in May. Shares under BLDE are trading after lunchtime at $11.36 and appear un-impacted by the news, which broke yesterday.
Earlier this year Blade announced it had reached an agreement with Jet Linx to operate eVTOLs as part of its network.
Find the perfect solution for your private aviation needs
Save Time. Buy Confidently.
Receive an apples-to-apples comparison of programs that meet your needs from more than 500 jet card and fractional options covering 65 points of differentiation and over 40,000 data points.
