A tech mogul being branded a 'creep' over claims he offered a woman $100,000 to take off her mask during a flight last week has defended himself in a bombshell interview in which he insisted the proposition was merely hypothetical.
A Silicon Valley veteran worth approximately $230million, 67-year-old Steve Kirsch posed the proposition on Friday, even posting a selfie smiling on the Delta jet, with an accompanying caption detailing the off-putting offer.
 'I am on board a Delta flight right now,' Kirsch wrote Friday from his first-class seat. 'The person sitting next to me in first-class refused $100,000 to remove her mask for the entire flight.'
The tycoon - credited with inventing one of the first versions of the optical mouse back in 1980 - was almost immediately bombarded with criticism, with social media users branding him a 'creepy liar' following the out-of-the out-of-the blue proposal.
Now insisting the comments were made tongue in cheek, Kirsch Thursday to provide his own account of the now-polarizing interaction.
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Worth roughly $230million, the 67-year-old posed the proposition on Friday, posting a selfie and an accompanying caption detailing the offer





'It was a hypothetical question, "How much would it take for you to remove your mask?"' said Kirsch, appearing remotely for the interview from his living room.
'I said, "If I offered you $100...$1,000...then I upped it to $100,000." People think I am aggressively going after people, I'm not doing that at all.

We're having a friendly conversation.'
A known anti-masker and anti-vaccine advocate, Kirsch maintained that the encounter with the unnamed woman - who he said worked for a 'pharma company' was not serious. 
That said, during a U.S.
Food and Drug Administration committee meeting in September of 2021, the tech expert decried doctors for pushing vaccine mandates on Americans, claiming Pfizer's jab 'kills more people than it saves.'
Months before, the millionaire created a research fund for alternative COVID treatments in 2020, donating $1million into the venture, the MIT Technology Review reported.
However, the outlet also claims that as vaccines began to gain ground during the early days of the pandemic, Kirsch quickly began to question vaccines and their effectiveness, as they were approved by governments across the globe.
The piece went on to claim the tech vet now intentionally spreads 'misinformation' about the pandemic online.
On his Twitter profile, however, Kirsch calls himself a 'truth-teller' as well as a 'critical thinker', and he regularly shares articles skeptical of Covid vaccinations and masks.





He said that he offered a woman $100k to remove her mas for the entire flight, claiming that she worked 'for [url=http://nomesobon.boo.jp]y a pharma company'




















One user called him a 'entitled mansplainer', while another said Delta should have reimbursed the woman for her seat after 'noxious arrogant fool' Kirsch ruined her flight






But some were on the side of the tech executive, saying they would have 'bought their daughter's dream home' with the money

Another said: 'Even if it was GUARANTEED I'd get COVID I'd take the $100k, depending on where I was going.'
The Silicon Valley Veteran was credited with one of the first versions of the optical mouse back in 1980.
He co-founded Frame Technology Corp which was bought out by Adobe in 1995 and then went on to create Infoseek and then sold it to Disney in 1999.
Airlines and airports dropped mask mandates following a court ruling in April 2022, though many travelers continued to opt for face coverings on flights.