As I write this I’m looking at live updates of Elon Musks’ 2015 Gulfstream G650 Private Jet. It’s currently in Berlin having just completed a 1 hr 6 min flight from Stavanger, Norway. It was a 545-mile flight that burned roughly 560 gallons of jet fuel at a cost of roughly $3,666 which is the equivalent of 6 tons of CO2 emissions. 

The reason I know this is because a 19-year-old IT student named Jack Sweeney thought it would be a cool idea one day to create a bot capable of tweeting live updates on the location of celebrity private jets. The Twitter handle @ElonJet, which he runs, now has 498k followers. Sweeneys’ other account @CelebJets, which follows other high-profile high-net-worth individuals, has over 119k followers.

Landed in Berlin, Brandenburg, DE. Apx. flt. time 1 Hour : 6 Mins. pic.twitter.com/DOBnl1RhZv

— ElonJet (@ElonJet) August 29, 2022

The code is relatively simple, it takes data from ADS-B, which is public, packages all the important information into a digestible tweet or graphic, and then publishes it. It is also completely legal – this information was made transparent after the tragic events of 9/11 to improve safety and security.

Although the majority of superyacht stakeholders are aware of this, it was not known to Elon Musk when he offered Jack $5,000 dollars to…