April 19, 2024
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.
