Arnold Schwarzenegger’s Private Jet: The $35 Million Gulfstream That Never Existed

Search for Arnold Schwarzenegger’s private jet and you will be told he owns a $35 million Gulfstream III. The source those stories cite is his own 2021 newsletter. It names no aircraft, gives no price, and says he has flown commercial on international trips ever since his years as governor.

The paper trail agrees with him. No aircraft is registered to Schwarzenegger in the FAA’s releasable aircraft database, released October 2, 2026. The jets he did fly were fractional NetJets aircraft and leased or chartered Gulfstreams, some of them paid for out of his own pocket while he ran California.

Below is every aircraft that can be tied to him on the record: the NetJets Gulfstream V spotters photographed in Austria, the Gulfstream he commuted in as governor, and the Gulfstream III that fleet guides invented. It also covers the carbon offset fight, the 2009 emergency landing and the 2023 photo that was supposed to prove he had flown private to a climate summit.

Arnold Schwarzenegger’s Private Jet Fleet, as the Records Show It

None of these three aircraft was ever registered to Schwarzenegger or to a company carrying his name. Two are Gulfstream Vs that spotters photographed carrying him in Austria. The third is the Gulfstream III that the internet assigned to him, for which no registration exists.

Gulfstream VN506QS · NetJets fractional fleet · photographed in Graz, June 2007

Fractional · NetJets

SeenGraz, Austria, June 24, 2007

ProgramNetJets fractional ownership

Range6,500 NM

Top speedMach 0.88

Passengers15 to 19

Engines2x Rolls-Royce BR710A1-10

N506QS todayA 2016 Cessna Citation Latitude

Gulfstream VN218EC · photographed in Graz, June 2011 · operator not on record

Spotted 2011 · owner unverified

SeenGraz, Austria, June 21, 2011

Registered to SchwarzeneggerNo record

Range6,500 NM

Top speedMach 0.88

Passengers15 to 19

N218EC todayA 2020 Lindstrand hot-air balloon

Gulfstream IIINo tail number · no registration found · reported, never documented

Unverified

Claimed price$35M (EssentiallySports, 2022)

Source for the claimA 2021 newsletter that names no aircraft

Built1979 to 1986, last one in 1986

Range3,650 NM

Max cruise501 knots

PassengersUp to 19

The Origin Story: From NetJets Owner to Commercial First Class

Schwarzenegger’s private flying ran through fractional shares and leases, never a jet of his own. A history of Executive Jet, the company behind NetJets, lists him among more than 1,600 fractional owners, alongside David Letterman, Pete Sampras and Tiger Woods. These are the dated milestones after that.

The Gulfstream V: The Jet Spotters Photographed in Graz

Graz is the Styrian capital beside Thal, the village where Schwarzenegger was born, and it is where the dated spotter photographs of him with a private jet were taken. Both show a Gulfstream V, the ultra-long-range Gulfstream built from 1995 to 2002, with 193 delivered.

The first, photographed on June 24, 2007, wore N506QS. More than 700 N-numbers on the FAA register end in QS. Most are flagged as fractionally owned with the owner’s name withheld, and those that do name an owner name NetJets Sales Inc.

The N506QS registration no longer belongs to a Gulfstream. In the October 2026 FAA release it sits on a 2016 Cessna Citation Latitude, again flagged as fractionally owned. The QS mark stayed with the fractional fleet while the Gulfstream moved on.

The second jet, N218EC, was photographed in Graz on June 21, 2011, five months after he left office. No record ties that Gulfstream to Schwarzenegger, and the mark has since moved on: today it belongs to a 2020 Lindstrand hot-air balloon registered in Louisiana.

The Governor’s Gulfstream: Commuting From Brentwood to Sacramento

Schwarzenegger never moved his family to Sacramento. He took a hotel penthouse near the Capitol, then began flying home to Brentwood at night and back to work in the morning, a three-hour round trip by the Environmental Working Group’s count.

In March 2008 the Los Angeles Times reported that the Gulfstream and the other jets the governor used cost as much as $10,000 an hour. The Environmental Working Group, writing about that story, put his personal bill for the commute at more than half a million dollars a year.

None of it was a state plane. California’s governor’s office no longer owned a jet, and in August 2010 his spokesman, Aaron McLear, told the Associated Press that Schwarzenegger paid for his own chartered plane between Sacramento and Brentwood. The same applied to flights to town halls and fire scenes inside the state.

Out-of-state trips on state business followed different rules. The donor-funded California State Protocol Foundation often paid for those, McLear said, while his political committee paid for campaign travel. That committee is where the 2006 bill of $733,000 for leased jets landed.

The Gulfstream III That Fleet Guides Invented

The $35 million Gulfstream III traces back to a 2022 EssentiallySports story. It quotes Schwarzenegger saying that once he hit a certain level of stardom he started to fly everywhere on private planes, and from that line it concludes that he bought a $35 million Gulfstream III.

The quote is real. It comes from his newsletter, archived in 2021. The rest of the passage says the opposite of what it was used to prove.

Then at some point when I was Governor, I flew commercial to an environmental event, and I realized my routine didn’t make sense anymore because the airlines could get me to the plane without all of the chaos, through a private terminal or with an escort. Ever since then I’ve flown commercial for my international trips, because it’s more environmentally friendly and I actually love it.

Arnold Schwarzenegger, newsletter, 2021

The Gulfstream III itself is a 1980s design. Gulfstream built 202 of them, the last in 1986, rated for 3,650 NM with eight passengers and a maximum cruise of 501 knots. A 2024 Simple Flying profile repeats that he owns one, but cites no registration, and none exists under his name, his company names or his initials.

The Carbon Offset Problem

Schwarzenegger built his second act on climate. As governor he made California’s fight against global warming his signature issue, and after office he founded the Austrian World Summit and the Schwarzenegger Climate Initiative.

That made the jet a target. The 2008 Los Angeles Times story cited Helium Report figures that one hour in the governor’s Gulfstream did nearly as much environmental damage as a small car does in a year.

His office’s answer was offsets. In February 2007 it announced a carbon offset program with NetJets, and administration officials told the Times he bought credits for the carbon dioxide his jet released.

Offsets have only grown more contested since. A 2024 Business Jet Traveler review notes that Greenpeace rejects offsetting flights on principle, and that a super-midsize jet emits about 2.5 metric tons of CO2 an hour. The same debate followed Taylor Swift’s private jet, after she bought twice the carbon credits needed for her Dassault Falcon 7X on an Asian tour leg.

Arnold Schwarzenegger’s Most Famous Flights

His best-known aviation moments involve a smoking cockpit, a camera angle and a customs desk. Only one of them happened on a private jet.

June 2009: “A Little Adventure” Over Los Angeles

On the evening of Friday, June 19, 2009, the governor’s business jet was about 10 minutes from landing at Santa Monica when the pilot reported smoke coming from an instrument panel. The jet diverted and made what McLear called a quick, steep, but safe landing at Van Nuys at 6:23 p.m.

City fire crews met the aircraft on the runway, found no flames, and nobody was hurt. Schwarzenegger tweeted a photo of the jet with the line “A little adventure just now when my plane made an emergency landing. All’s ok, though.”

The 15-Hour Flight to Australia

In the same 2021 newsletter, Schwarzenegger described boarding a flight to Australia and finding no first-class cabin. He faced 15 hours bumping elbows with a stranger and felt his mood going south.

He gave himself a talking-to, introduced himself to his seatmate and spent the flight talking business and horses. He says she still writes to him and has attended his Arnold Sports Festivals.

May 2023: The Lufthansa Photo

In May 2023, as he headed to his Austrian World Summit, critics shared a photo of him on board a plane as proof that climate campaigners fly private. Schwarzenegger replied: “This is a commercial flight – I truly hope you don’t go around making things up to be angry about all the time.” Defenders pointed to the Lufthansa branding visible above his head.

January 2024: Three Hours at Munich Customs

German customs held him for about three hours at Munich Airport over an Audemars Piguet watch he had not declared. A source close to him told CNN the watch was headed for his charity auction in Kitzbühel the next day, and that he was never asked to fill out a declaration form.

Munich Customs said he faced criminal tax proceedings. He agreed to prepay the tax, but the officers’ card machine failed for an hour, and they finally took him to a bank to withdraw cash.

How Schwarzenegger Compares to Other Hollywood Flyers

Among the Hollywood celebrities with private jets, Schwarzenegger sits in the smaller group that rents rather than owns. The actors with real fleets tend to be pilots themselves.

The closest match is Tiger Woods’ private jet. Woods appears on the same NetJets owner list, and he went on to buy a whole Gulfstream of his own. Schwarzenegger never made that second step.

The pilots are a different category. Harrison Ford and John Travolta fly their own aircraft, while Schwarzenegger was always a passenger, and these days often one in an airline seat.