Elon Musk.
The owner of the @ElonJet account, Jack Sweeney, has previously said that all the information he used to create the account is publicly available. Sweeney didn't respond to a request for additional comment.
Although the data used to operate the @ElonJet account and other similar accounts tracking celebrity planes is publicly accessible, experts note there isn't a single government registry of such data.
Instead, it actually requires putting together separate pieces of information to create tracking accounts. Doing so, of course, raises privacy concerns.
The tracking capabilities are possible thanks to a technology called Automatic Dependent Surveillance–Broadcast (ADS-B). It's like global positioning system technology, or GPS, but on steroids. Every three seconds, ADS-B equipment on a plane sends out real-time data about not just the aircraft's location, but also its altitude and velocity and other critical elements of its journey. That has two main purposes: to avoid midair collisions and to allow people on the ground to know where an airplane is at all times.
For decades, aircraft traveling outside of radar view were exposed to long stretches — over oceans, deserts, mountains — where no one knew where they were. The issue reached a chilling turning point in 2014, when Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 disappeared from radar carrying 239 passengers and crew members over the Andaman Sea off the Malay Peninsula, culminating in the most expensive airplane search effort in modern history.
His Gulfstream could be seen having landed Wednesday evening in Austin through ADS-B Exchange.
On Thursday, it took off again in the afternoon local time heading northwest.
Twitter recently suspended the account of a student who created a tool that posted flights taken by the billionaire's jet.
Elon Musk is trying to keep his private jet travels away from public view, despite the fact that his flight data is available online and relatively easy to track.
His Gulfstream jet, registered through an LLC he owns, could be seen having landed on Wednesday evening in Austin through an online tracker, ADS-B Exchange. On Thursday, it took off again in the afternoon local time heading northwest.
ADS-B is accessible to anyone online. The site makes use of flight information transmitted by federal law to show thousands of commercial and private aircraft flights all over the world. While Musk has recently begun to claim such tracking poses a security risk, ADS-B addresses that stance on its website.
"If aircraft do not want to be seen, (such as military aircraft on a mission) they can always turn their transponders 'off,'" the site says. "The position data shown by ADSBexchange is available to anyone who can spend $50 on Amazon and put the parts together. It's not secret. Air Traffic Control voice comms are not encrypted either, and contain similar (or more) information."
Other notable billionaires have taken pains to keep their flight data inaccessible by the public. Google co-founder Larry Page is also part of the LADD program and frequently uses rental jets to keep his travels more secret, as Insider reported. Bernard Arnault, the co-founder and CEO of luxury fashion group LVMH, earlier this year sold his private jet and began using rentals to avoid his flights being made public.
In addition to private jet tracking showing where the ultra-wealthy are traveling to, accounts like Sweeney's that posted on social media about the flights noted how long they were and how much air-pollution such trips created. Private planes are known to be 14 times more pollutive per passenger than a commercial flight, creating 2 metric tons of carbon per hour.
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