Elon Musk's Jet Took A 9-Minute Flight From San Jose to San Francisco A public transit enthusiast called out the flight on Twitter, which sparked fury online.
By Gabrielle Bienasz •
Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.
Elon Musk's jet took a nine-minute flight, and the internet is not thrilled, Unilad reported.
Hayden Clarkin, founder of TransitCon, a public transit conference, tweeted about the flight with a picture of the flight path.
Elon Musk took a 9 minute flight to San Francisco from San Jose, which is 5 stops on Caltrain. I literally have no words. pic.twitter.com/dToHAkxBFF
— Hayden Clarkin (@the_transit_guy) August 21, 2022
"Elon Musk took a 9 minute flight to San Francisco from San Jose, which is 5 stops on Caltrain. I literally have no words," he wrote.
San Francisco and San Jose are about 55 miles apart. On Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART) the trip takes about an hour and 40 minutes, per Apple Maps. On Caltrain, the trip takes a little less than two hours.
It's not exactly clear when the flight took place, but, @ElonJet, the Twitter account run by a teen who automatically imports public data tracking Musk's jet into a social media feed, tweeted about it in May, and the account purports to track the Tesla CEO's jet roughly in real-time.
Landed in San Francisco, California, US. Apx. flt. time 9 Mins. pic.twitter.com/8vWvODLEOL
— ElonJet (@ElonJet) May 6, 2022
It's unclear if Musk was on the plane during this particular ride. He did not respond right away to Entrepreneur's request for comment.
Elon Musk has offered the teen as much as $5,000 to shut the tracking account down, per Protocol.
The tweet from Clarkin inspired a host of strong reactions. He tweeted "Going into my DMs to defend your lord and savior Elon Musk is just going to stay unread," and followed up with "Elon Musk fans… phew."
There were comments about carbon emission, speculation the plane was "just" being moved, and calls back to 18th-century France:
— Critical Russ Theory (@RPG_volley) August 21, 2022
"It's not like he took the flight, they just flew the empty plane to the airport to save time" is not the excuse you think it is, folks https://t.co/mef6ArVq3C
— ern. (@ErinEARoss) August 22, 2022
I'm just trying to imagine him sitting on a train
— Katie Mack (@AstroKatie) August 21, 2022
Venture capitalist, Om Malik, called it a "Marvel complex."
If only there was a tunnel you could bore and zip Tesla cars through it and put "quick" into a quick dash. Oh wait, I can't make that joke because I am not a billionaire with Marvel complex! https://t.co/hTcJxn2Mxt
— OM (@om) August 22, 2022
petition to throw elon musk on a red line bart at 7 am https://t.co/dCiCektcEm
— chamie (@jxmieang2) August 22, 2022
Social media users have been critiquing celebrities online for their use of private jets. Earlier this month, Taylor Swift's publicist defended herself against claims from an environmental group that she put out 8,000 tonnes of CO2 in 2022, by saying that the plane is "loaned out regularly," per The Guardian.
my fit for when Taylor Swift loans me her private jet pic.twitter.com/xXnY8l8YQK
— EJ Olsen (@ericolsenjr) August 3, 2022
Kylie Jenner recently posted a picture with Travis Scott and two private jets and said "you wanna take mine or yours?," and another teen's account, @celebjets, revealed that she had just taken a 20–minute private flight, per Futurism. The picture is still up.
Even with increased fuel prices, private plane use is as popular as ever, according to the BBC.
Just 1% of people on the planet cause 50% of the world's carbon emissions, per Transport & Environment.
