Elon Musk’s private jet appears to make frivolous flights, per Washington Post

Enlarge / A Gulfstream G650ER executive jet sits on display on the second day of the 14th Dubai Air Show. Musk, too, owns a Gulfstream G650ER. (credit: Jasper Juinen/Bloomberg via Getty Images)

Flight data obtained by The Washington Post shows that Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk has a private jet that logged about 150,000 miles in 2018. While many billionaires have private jets, Musk’s jet stands out in the number of trips it made and miles it logged, the Post reports.

Perhaps most egregious, the plane logged a number of 20-mile trips, repositioning from the south side of Los Angeles to the north side. “Tesla said Musk never used the plane to fly between different spots in Los Angeles,” the Post reports. Instead, the jet would make the 20-mile repositioning flights to meet the CEO at a closer airport.

Flying is an extremely carbon-intensive activity, made worse when only a few people are transported rather than many are on a commercial jet. According to the Post, the 150,000 miles that Musk’s jet flew represents roughly 250 flights. Although it’s not always clear that Musk was aboard every flight, the CEO’s private jet made 100 more flights than the private jet of Jeff Bezos, CEO of Amazon (and owner of The Washington Post).