Lucky escape: Billionaire turned down discounted Titan tickets

Las Vegas-based billionaire Jay Bloom was offered discounted tickets to travel on the now-imploded Titan with his son, but rejected the offer due to a scheduling conflict, he revealed in a Facebook post on Thursday.

Bloom had been offered the discount tickets at a price of $150,000 USD by OceanGate’s Stockton Rush who perished on the Titan.

“So. I decided to share some of my texts with Stockton Rush, the CEO and founder of OceanGate, the company that built and operated the sub, Titan, that we have all been following this last week,” Bloom wrote on the Facebook post.

“In February Stockton asked me and my son, Sean, to go with him on the dive to Titanic in May. Both May dives were postponed due to weather and the dive got delayed until June 18, the date of this trip.”

Bloom added that he expressed concerns over the Titan’s safety but claimed that Rush had said “While there's obviously risk it's way safer than flying in a helicopter or even scuba diving. There hasn't been even an injury in 35 years in non-military subs. 

Bloom explained that he didn’t join the Titan voyage “due to scheduling we couldn’t go until next year.” 

The seats that Bloom and his son were meant to occupy “ went to Shahzada Dawood and his 19-year-old son, Suleman Dawood, two of the other three who lost their lives on this excursion (the fifth being Hamish Harding).”

The text messages between Bloom and Rush

The leaked messages reveal that a concerned friend had researched and warned Bloom’s son about the dangers of the voyage. As a result, Bloom’s son expressed that he was too afraid to go.

Rush described the friend as “uninformed” and Bloom responded by describing some of the friend’s concerns as “really stupid stuff. 

Repeating that the friend’s concerns were “very stupid,” Rush informed Bloom that the Titan was “safer than flying in a helicopter or even scuba diving.”