
Richard Stockton Rush III (1962-18 June 2023) was an American businessman and the founding CEO of OceanGate. Descended from Benjamin Rush and Richard Stockton on his father's side and from the industrialist Ralph K. Davies on his mother's side, he came from two prominent San Francisco families, and he became a jet pilot at the age of 19 and graduated from Princeton University with a degree in aerospace engineering. In 2009, he founded OceanGate Inc., building and chartering a submersible which offered trips to the bottom of the ocean to view the wreckage of the RMS Titanic off Newfoundland. In 2018, the Marine Technology Society professional society expressed its unanimous concern about OceanGate's submersible titan, but Rush resolved that industry regulations were stifling innovation and stated in a CBS News podcast, "At some point, safety just is pure waste. I mean, if you just want to be safe, don't get out of bed. Don't get in your car. Don't do anything." Sure enough, on 18 June 2023, he piloted the Titanic and four other passengers - Pakistani billionaire Shahzada Dawood and his 19-year-old son Suleman, British businessman Hamish Harding, and retired French Navy commander Paul-Henri Nargeolet - to their deaths, as the submersible's pressure chamber broke during the dive, killing them instantly.
Rush was a Republican, with a long history of donating to GOP candidates and opposing safety regulations, arguing that they stifled creativity.