Steve Jobs's Private Jet
Steve Jobs asked the Apple board for this private airplane to make his business and leisure trips easier in 2000.
Steve Jobs's private jet was offered to him by the Apple board when he officially became the company's CEO, in January 2000. It is a Gulfstream V Jet, worth over $40 million (total cost for Apple: $88 million). The 2009 SEC investigation revealed that "he brought up the idea: 'What I really need is a plane where I can take my family to Hawaii on vacation, go to the East Coast.' and the board agreed". Larry Ellison supposedly declared, "With what he's done, we ought to give him five airplanes!"
Steve reportedly worked hard on customizing his airplane, for over a year. According to Isaacson's biography, he used Ellison's plane as a starting point and made a number of improvements, such as changing the polished stainless steel of the buttons to replace them with brushed metal ones. "I look at his airplane and mine, and everything he changed was better," said Ellison.
The company agreed to reimburse Steve Jobs the operating expenses of his plane when he used it for Apple business. The numbers are $202,000 in 2006, $776,000 in 2007, $871,000 in 2008, $4,000 in 2009 and $248,000 in 2010. It is not known what has happened to that plane now that Steve has passed away.