Televangelist Jesse Duplantis Wants $54 Million Jet, and Followers to Pay for It

Jesse Duplantis, the Destrehan-based prosperity gospel televangelist with a global reach, is asking disciples for money to buy a jet that costs $54 million “so we can go anywhere in the world in one stop.” He seeks the donations in a video posted last week on his ministry’s website.

“I really believe that if the Lord Jesus Christ was physically on the Earth today, he wouldn’t be riding a donkey,” Duplantis says in the video. “He’d be in an airplane flying all over the world.”

He says his 40-year-old Jesse Duplantis Ministries has paid cash for three private jets and been “just burning them up for the Lord Jesus Christ.” The most recent purchase was in 2006, he says.

Now he has his sights set on a Dassault Falcon 7X, a three-engine jet with a range of 5,950 nautical miles. Its customizable cabins accommodate 12 to 16 passengers. A 2017 write-up on SherpaReport.com, a website focused on private aviation, said the list price for a new Falcon 7X was $54 million.