Several companies say that the use of private planes has gone up because of worries about COVID-19.

Last year, Mark Zuckerberg, the founder of Facebook, was the most famous business traveler. Top US companies spent more money on private jet travel than they had since 2012.

According to a Financial Times article that used data from ISS Corporate Solutions, CEOs and board members of S&P 500 companies spent almost $34 million on private jet travel last year.

The investment advisory firm found that corporations spent an average of $170,000 on private jets over the past year. Companies are getting more and more criticism for the big difference in pay between the CEO and the average worker. A study by the Institute for Policy Studies found that CEOs at 300 of the lowest-paying companies in the United States made 670 times as much as their employees.

Several companies say that the use of private planes has gone up because of worries about COVID-19. Since the pandemic started, the Financial Times says, executives at Discover Financial and Lockheed Martin have been able to use company jets for business trips in a more lenient manner. COVID-19 worries might not be the only reason people use private jets. Many CEOs with a lot of public attention need private jets to keep them safe.

A spokesperson for Meta told Insider that Mark's safety required "full and sophisticated resources." "Because of his important job at Meta and the risks to his safety, Mark has to use a private plane for all of his business and personal trips."

Protocol said last year that after the pandemic, CEO security costs went up by a lot. Mark Zuckerberg, the founder of Facebook, spends a lot more on security than other executives.

In 2021, Meta spent $26.8 million on Zuckerberg's safety. About $1.6 million of that was spent on private jets for the billionaire. In a filing with the government earlier this year, the cost was made public. A filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission says that this could put Meta's safety at risk. He's a byword for Meta, so the document says that people often blame him for how they feel about our company.

The other two companies that spent more than $1 million on private jets for their executives in 2013 were Tyson Foods and Lockheed Martin.

Google spent about $4.3 million on CEO Sundar Pichai's security in 2021, while Amazon will spend about $1.6 million on founder Jeff Bezos and about $600,000 on the company's newest CEO, Andy Jassy. ISS Corporate Solutions says that neither of these two companies made the list of the 15 companies that spent the most on private jets in 2021.