Elon Musk’s private jet made over 130 flights in 2022 with shortest lasting 6 minutes, tracker data shows
Tesla and Twitter chief Elon Musk’s private jet made more than 130 flights in 2022, according to a Florida student who compiles tracker data on its movements.
Jack Sweeney, the 20-year-old computer programmer who has created a number of Twitter bots tracking aircraft belonging to the rich and famous, used publicly available data for Mr Musk’s Gulfstream G650ER jet to show that its shortest flight in 2022 lasted just six minutes, while the longest spanned over 12 hours.
Overall the tracker suggests the private jet made 134 flights in 2022, emitting nearly 1,900 tons of carbon dioxide and an operating cost including fuel expenses of about $1.1m.
The data does not reveal whether the Tesla chief was on board the plane during each of these flights.
The jet made trips to countries including France, Brazil, Greece, Italy, Germany, and the UK, and Mr Musk likely also used it to attend the Fifa World Cup in Qatar, the tracker indicates. The billionaire was spotted at the tournament’s final and posted Twitter updates from the game.
The jet’s most common destinations, according to Mr Sweeney, are Austin and Brownsville in Texas as well as Los Angeles.
Elon traveled the world in 2022. Foreign trips this year include:
Brazil 🇧🇷
France 🇫🇷
Italy 🇮🇹
Greece 🇬🇷
Norway 🇳🇴
Germany 🇩🇪
United Kingdom 🇬🇧
Qatar 🇶🇦
See how much CO2 this added up to here: https://t.co/H4ghR1rDpr— ElonJet but Delayed (@ElonJetNextDay) January 1, 2023
In December, the Tesla tycoon said he would take legal action against Mr Sweeney for posting details of his movements, which he claimed threatened the safety of one of his children.
Following the incident, Twitter banned the @Elonjet account set up by Mr Sweeney in June 2020 that had been tracking Mr Musk’s private jet.
“Last night, car carrying lil X in LA was followed by crazy stalker (thinking it was me), who later blocked car from moving & climbed onto hood. Legal action is being taken against Sweeney & organizations who supported harm to my family,” the Twitter chief wrote.
“Any account doxxing real-time location info of anyone will be suspended, as it is a physical safety violation. This includes posting links to sites with real-time location info. Posting locations someone traveled to on a slightly delayed basis isn’t a safety problem, so is ok,” he said.
The @ElonJet account was briefly restored and then banned again in December following changes to Twitter’s rules on “doxing”.
“When someone shares an individual’s live location on Twitter, there is an increased risk of physical harm. Moving forward, we’ll remove Tweets that share this information, and accounts dedicated to sharing someone else’s live location will be suspended,” Twitter safety noted.
Following the suspension of @ElonJet, Mr Sweeney created another Twitter account called @ElonJetNextDay that posts the same flight tracking data with a 24-hour delay.
