Google Chairman and CEO Eric Schmidt (R) speaks beside co-founders Sergey Brin (L) and Larry Page at the Sun Valley Inn in Sun Valley, Idaho July 8, 2010.
A company responsible for managing a fleet of aircrafts used by Google execs has been reportedly purchasing fuel from the government at below market prices, resulting in more than $5 million in erroneous savings.
According to a report published by the NASA Inspector General on Wednesday, H211 bought the improperly priced fuel from a provider working under the U.S. Defense Department at the NASA Ames Research Center, where Google’s planes are housed. The report specifies that the error was caused by a misunderstanding and not “intentional misconduct.”
Fuel was apparently sold to H211 at discount rates because the provider was under the assumption that the fleet was being used exclusively for NASA-related flights. While the planes were loaned out to NASA from time to time, they were primarily used by the internet search engine’s bigwigs from August 2012 to July 2013.
[Reuters]