BAD HARDWARE WEEK

Google Inc. founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin may have to dig deeper to operate their fleet of private jets, after the U.S. Department of Defense ended a little-known arrangement that for years allowed the tech billionaires to travel on sharply discounted jet fuel bought from the Pentagon.

The relationship with the Google founders already is part of an ongoing audit by NASA's inspector general, an official in that office said. The cheap fuel for the Google executives came courtesy of a special agreement with NASA, whose Ames Research Center is based at Moffett Federal Airfield, a former U.S. Navy base that is the most convenient airport to Google's Mountain View, Calif., headquarters, about three miles away.

Three of the Google founders' jets, including the 767, took off from Moffett for Croatia this past July. The departures were just before the wedding in Croatia of Mr. Page's brother-in-law, held in a medieval hill town near the Adriatic coast. Mr. Page, the Google CEO, attended as a groomsman and was photographed sporting an eyeglass-like Google Glass computer at the altar.
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