Move over, "Fear Factor." "The Rebel Billionaire" stunts are bigger. "Fox’s Rebel Billionaire: Branson’s Quest for the Best" ups the daredevil ante as it takes 16 entrepreneurs on a globe-trotting adventure to see who will win $1 million and become president of the Virgin Corporation.

The two-hour premiere, starring Britain’s premiere business tycoon Sir Richard Branson, a self-made billionaire and founder/CEO of Virgin Corporation, aired on the FOX network Tuesday night.

The newest business-oriented, reality-based rat race aims to test 16 American entrepreneurs' mental and physical strengths. "Rebel Billionaire" is a mixture of "Fear Factor" and Donald Trump's "The Apprentice," except the contestants are not asked to eat blended insects. And unlike Trump, whose mouth got the most physical exercise when firing contestants, Branson joins contestants as they compete in hair-raising stunts.

The show begins with Branson disguising himself as an elderly taxi cab driver who transports contestants from the airport to his Oxford estate in the affluent countryside of England. He wants to see for himself who the contestants really are.

Once they arrive at the estate, meet each other and compare notes, a sleek black limo pulls up. It is none other than the “you’re fired” guy. Actually, it is a Donald Trump impersonator, but it takes a while for the star-struck competitors to digest the prank. It seems that Branson is already posturing himself as the bigger shark in the world of business, entertainment and now reality shows.

Whether the real Donald Trump will choose to retaliate is anyone's guess.
Confused and speechless, the 16 competitors are puzzled by the arrival of the inferior black cab that parks behind the limo. It is none other than Branson himself, eager to deem Spencer and Aisha losers in the first round of eliminations that gauged personality and character over athletic agility and endurance.

A video playback of the cab ride reveals flaws in Spencer and Aisha's human relationship skills.

“I plan to make everyone single, and one of them (the contestants) my bitch,” said Spencer, a car salesman from Austin, Texas.

Aisha, a pharmaceutical sales representative from Chicago, Ill. annoyingly asked the driver, “You don’t know who Jennifer Lopez is?”

Branson said that there was no room for arrogance or the celebrity obsessed in his corporation, so for Spencer and Aisha it was back to the United States.

With 14 contestants left, one group of seven are challenged to walk across a narrow plank connecting two hot-air balloons that are 10,000 feet in the air, while the remaining seven watch from the ground. Two contestants, Sara and Tim, failed the plank-walking stunt and had to square off in an additional challenge. Both climbed a 100-foot ladder to reach the top of the same hot-air balloon to have, what else -- a tea party. But once they return to the ground, Branson eliminates Tim.

A shiny Boeing 747 from Branson’s Virgin Atlantic Airline is waiting on the tarmac to whisk the remaining 13 American entrepreneurs to Hong Kong for another challenge using their marketing skills. Sounds simple, but with all reality television shows, it is never as easy as it sounds.

"The Rebel Billionaire" airs on KTVU Fox Channel 2 Tuesday nights at 8 p.m.