Billionaire Tilman Fertitta says he furloughed 45,000 employees quickly as a ‘favor’

Billionaire businessman Tilman Fertitta said that employers such as himself are doing workers a “favor” by furloughing them quickly to help them receive unemployment benefits amid the coronavirus pandemic in an interview on Saturday.

During Fertitta’s appearance on Fox News’s “Ingraham Angle,” host Brian Kilmeade asked the billionaire, who owns Landry’s and the Houston Rockets in addition to a number of other businesses, how he and his establishments were “holding up” amid the COVID-19 outbreak.

“I’m holding up pretty damn good,” he said during the interview. “But I’ve got 45,000 employees out there that we’ve had to furlough that is so tremendously unfortunate, that we have to get back to work as soon as we can. These unemployment numbers of 16 million, and there’s no telling what it’s going to be next week. That’s what’s so sad about this whole crisis.”

“How hard was that decision to lay off your employees?” Kilmeade asked Fertitta.

“You know, Brian, I went through the ’87 crisis, the 2000, the 2008,” Fertitta responded. “You’re doing the people a favor if you get them furloughed first because you have them first to unemployment line after the severance that you give them. It’s a trick that I’ve learned many years ago.”

“It’s just unimaginable,” Fertitta, who Forbes magazine estimates has a net worth of roughly $4.8 billion, went on to say.

“We’ve all had to do little layoffs over the years. But you have to basically shut down the whole company,” he continued. “When you think of having amusement parks, aquariums, a basketball team, casinos all over the world, and nothing is open. It’s just like a sci-fi movie you’d never believe.” 

Kilmeade then asked Fertitta for an idea of how much money his businesses are losing during the pandemic, which has prompted other businesses across the country deemed nonessential to close as the government works to curb the spread of the COVID-19, for which a vaccine has not yet been found.

“Give us an idea of how much cash is going out the window and what you need to sustain it,” the host said.

“This is what people don’t understand, is we all pay today, yesterday’s bills with today’s money,” Fertitta responded. “And when we just got shut down in a 48-hour period, you still have a payroll and severance, $100 million for me because my payroll is $1.5 billion a year, which is done now. But my cash burn today is still $2 million a day, which is unfathomable. But that’s why we’ve got to stay liquid. I went out and did some finances this week that will take me to the end of the year.”

His comments come as the Trump administration sets its sights on reopening parts of the country at the start of May in an effort to bolster the economy and as millions across the U.S. have been filing for unemployment benefits after being put out of work due to the pandemic.