Elon Musk’s private jet will make 134 flights in 2022, according to data compiled by @ElonJet. The jet’s shortest flight was six minutes, which could have been the pilot changing the aircraft’s position. The jet had an operating cost of $2.6 million and produced 1,800 tons of CO2 per @ElonJet.
Elon Musk’s private jet will make 134 flights in 2022, according to the man who runs a Twitter account that tracks his movements. Jack Sweeney, a college student who began tracking the plane in 2020, compiled data on the billionaire’s Gulfstream G650ER, which has the call sign N628TS and the data does not show whether Musk was on board.
This data shows that Elon Musk used his private jet to fly to Qatar to attend the Football World Cup final. The aircraft also visited Brazil, France, Italy, Greece, Norway, Germany and the United Kingdom. Its longest flight was recorded on 18 July, from Mykonos, Greece to Austin, Texas. Elon Musk is likely to be on board as he was pictured in Greece two days ago.
It was later revealed that the jet’s shortest flight lasted about six minutes, and data shows it remained at Long Beach Airport. The movement could have been to change the plane. According to the data, the most frequent destinations included Los Angeles and Austin and Brownsville in Texas.
In December, Elon Musk threatened to sue Sweeney, saying it endangered his two-year-old son. Sweeney told Insider that he was not concerned with Musk’s threat. Sweeney uses bots to scour and post public flight data that could otherwise be found through the aircraft tracking site ADS-B Exchange.
The public scrutiny generated by his account could have been avoided if Elon Musk had paid him the $50,000 he owed to close it and compared the estimated $2.6 million annual bill to operate the jet. A smaller amount and as Sweeney said, $50k would have been nothing for privacy.
Although Sweeney’s @ElonJet account was permanently banned from Twitter following a change in its docking policy, he created another account called @ElonJetNext that posts the same data but with a delay of 24 hours. The 134 flights produced 1,895 tons of CO2, which included operating costs as well as fuel expenses of over $1.1 million.