Last year Elon Musk's made over 130 flights as hacktivist keeps tabs on mogul's Gulfstream. Photo / Jakob Rosen, Unsplash
Last year Elon Musk's made over 130 flights as hacktivist keeps tabs on mogul's Gulfstream. Photo / Jakob Rosen, Unsplash
The personal jet of Elon Musk made more than 130 flights in 2022 according to a programmer, whose project has drawn ire from the billionaire.
Despite legal threats and the offer of cash settlements, Jack Sweeny has been tracking the private jet of the businessman (among others) since 2020.
Last year the Gulfstream G650ER belonging to Elon Musk racked up a total of 134 flights and 352 hours in the air.
Using open source air traffic data 20-year-old college student, Sweeny has published the report on the rich lister via his personal website.
Although the tracking data cannot say whether Musk was onboard or not, the private jet called into the airspace of eight international destinations - including Brazil, Greece and Qatar. The Jet Tracking bot successfully predicted the billionaire would be attending the FIFA World Cup Final in Doha, tracking the Gulfstream from London to the Persian Gulf last month.
With the longest flight taking 12 and a half hours and the shortest just six, the report estimates that Musk burned through around 1895 tons of carbon and $4 million in operating costs in 2022 alone.
Since Sweeny first began reporting on Musk’ movements three years ago he has made a personal mission out of compiling a database of the Tesla founder’s private jet movements.
Originally posting automated updates via the Twitter account @ElonJet, the account was suspended following Musk’s takeover of the social media company.
The Tweeter-in-chief said that the real-time publication of the jet’s location was in violation of the site’s privacy policies and a “physical safety violation”. He claimed that “legal action” was being taken against Sweeny for publishing information that could be a threat to him and his family.
Last year Sweeny published a new feed tracking the Twitter CEO’s aircraft to accommodate the new rules called, @ElonJetNextDay, which publishes the flight details of the private jet with a 24-hour delay. This twitter handle is still active.
The tracking data of the Gulf Stream, named Falcon Landing, is still published to a repository on a private website GrndCntrl.net and on other social media sites not belonging to the tech mogul.
Sweeny reportedly turned down a reported US$5,000 ($7.7k) settlement to delete the website from Musk.
Billionaire Elon Musk offered a reported US$5,000 to Sweeny to close the account. Photo / Getty Images
The college student says he originally built the jet tracking “bot” because he was a fan of the businessman. However he thought the cash settlement was a little low from the Tesla founder, who is worth an estimated 153 billion USD.
“I’ve put a lot of work into it, and $5k is just really not enough,” he said.
2022 was a busy year for Musk’s pilots and crew but a fraction of his busiest year to date. In 2018 the Washington Post reported that Falcon Landing racked up 242,000 kilometres in the air over 250 flights.
At the time Musk said the flights were of urgent importance to his businesses during what he called a “terrible year”, while his car company Tesla was running at a loss of $100 million a week.
Jack Sweeny continues to publish the movements of Musk's private jet, despite legal threats. Photo / Instagram, ElonMusksJet
