OceanGate CEO Stockton Rush's ambitions for the Titanic sub went beyond exploration — he said it was his gateway into a multi-billion dollar industry that harvests oil and gas from the ocean

• OceanGate CEO Stockton Rush planned to use the Titanic submersible to work with oil and gas firms.
• He wanted to break into a multi-billion dollar industry servicing platforms for energy companies.

Stockton Rush, the CEO of the company that ran the now-imploded Titanic submersible, said in 2017 that he aimed for the vessel to eventually help him obtain contracts with companies mining oil and gas from the ocean.

In an interview with business magazine FastCompany, Rush said he expected the demand for tours with his company, OceanGate, to diminish as more wealthy adventurers embarked on deep-sea dives.

The first few dives to the Titanic would fetch the highest prices, but customers would expect to pay less as it became more common for people to see the wreck, Rush told FastCompany.

"The most expensive Virgin Galactic flight is the first one with Richard Branson," he said.

OceanGate launched its Titanic tours in 2021, typically charging each customer $250,000 to see the wreck via Rush's experimental submersible, the Titan.

Rush thus hoped that by the time tourists weren't as interested in adventure dives with the Titan, the deep-sea trips themselves — which go to 13,000 feet under surface level — would have proven the safety of his submersible technology to oil and gas companies.

"The biggest resource is oil and gas, and they spend about $16 billion a year on robots to service oil and gas platforms," Rush said, saying companies which harvest these resources are averse to adopting brand-new technology and need the equipment to be proven.

Rush, the grandson of oil and gas magnate Ralph Davies, was interested in oil and gas reserves, diamonds, and rare earth minerals in the deep ocean, FastCompany reported.

"There's all these resources to be explored, and I couldn't understand why there aren't any manned subs," he told the outlet. "Turns out one of the reasons was that people had not looked at the business aspect of operating a manned sub, because operations were funded by governments through universities for research. Nobody thought about cost, nobody thought about revenue."

OceanGate wouldn't be mining the resources but would help with inspection, repair, and maintenance, he said.

While Rush had business in mind, it's also clear from past reports that he sought out adventure and wanted to be a pioneering explorer. He had ties to the Explorer's Club, an elite group of scientists and explorers who paid tribute to Rush and said he conducted lectures at their headquarters.

He earned a pilot's license when he was 19, and was a former test flight engineer for an F-15 fighter jet program. Rush called himself a "daredevil inventor" in a 2019 Smithsonian magazine profile.

But the CEO, who was piloting the Titan when it went missing on Sunday, was warned multiple times about safety issues in his submersible — by people both inside and outside of OceanGate.

He'd defied conventional submersible designs by utilizing carbon fiber to build its hull. In a 2021 interview, he said he was aware that he had "broken some rules" by using such materials, but was confident in the safety of the design and cited innovation and cost-effectiveness.

Rush also repeatedly criticized safety regulations, calling them "obscenely safe" and overly strict.

He was one of the five people killed instantly on the Titan after it imploded under deep-sea pressure.

OceanGate did not immediately respond to a request for comment sent outside regular business hours.