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    Tech tycoon offers $100,000 to female co-passenger to take off her face mask, she declines

    Millionaire tech tycoon offers a female co-flyer $100k to take off her face mask, she declines

    Story outline

    • The man was travelling in the first class on a Delta flight
    • The tech boss is Steve Kirsch, a 67-year-old Silicon Valley veteran
    • The co-passenger is in her 60s and works for a pharma company
    • Kirsch started bidding at $100, offering money to the woman to take off her face mask
    A technology tycoon, who is worth a reported $230 million, made global headlines recently after he offered a co-passenger on the Delta flight a whopping $100,000 to take off her mask.

    The woman was seated next to the tech mogul named Steve Kirsch on a first-class Delta flight. The entrepreneur took wrote of the encounter in a post on Twitter which has now gone viral, but for all the wrong reasons!

    According to the 67-year-old Kirsch, he made the $100,000 offer to the woman sitting next to him to remove her mask after he explained to her that masking up doesn't help. Though the co-passenger, who Kirsch says is in her mid 60s, refused the offer, the tech mogul shared the story on Twitter.

    The woman works for a pharma company, he said. Kirsch's post on Twitter backfired miserably as the business tycoon was slammed on the microblogging site for being "creepy" and a "noxious arrogant fool" who ruined a woman's flight.

    Days after the incident went viral, the tech tycoon broke his silence and claimed that the $100,000 offer was "hypothetical" to "question the intensity of her belief" that masks were an effective form of protection against the virus.

    “She believes it [the mask] works,” the tech tycoon told the New York Post.

    On a Twitter thread that started on March 10, the Silicon Valley veteran, credited with introducing one of the first versions of the optical mouse back in 1980, shared that the bidding started at $100. "And I pointed out that when she removed the mask for eating and drinking, she could be infected with one breath. So she had full disclosure," Kirsch said.

    "She took off her mask as soon as breakfast was served!!!! Because everyone knows you can’t get infected while you are eating!!" he added.

    While the post by Kirsch attracted over 32.2 million views on Twitter, many users called him an "entitled mansplainer". A few others urged the airline to reimburse the woman seated next to him for her trip being ruined.

    "Maybe next time I’ll sit next to someone who had an account at Silicon Valley Bank," Kirsch added.
    A film producer joked that now many people will try to fly with him and be seated next to the tech tycoon.

    "Lots of folks are gonna try to fly with you and wear masks to get that offer now," Robby Starbuck tweeted.
    Many also slammed him and called him a liar. However, this isn't the first time that Kirsch has offered money to people inside a plane for taking off their masks.

    In a post made by the millionaire on Substrack, Kirsch had claimed that previously he offered $10,000 to people sitting next to him, but both of them declined the offer.
    delta flight
    Kirsch had created a research fund for potential Covid treatment where he poured $1 million into the venture, as per MIT Technology Review.
    ( Originally published on Mar 17, 2023 )

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