Jack Sweeney is the 19-year-old student behind the popular Twitter account @CelebJets, which posts celebrity private jet trips. This account has become famous for revealing the carbon emissions these “ultra-short” trips can produce.
This guy has 30 Twitter accounts, including @CelebJets and @ElonJet, to follow private jets owned by billionaires, celebrities and financiers. These use data from sites such as ADS-B Exchange.
Mark Zuckerberg uses a private plane to travel… 30 km
Sharing with Bloomberg, the 19-year-old hacker, now a student at the University of Central Florida, said: “Flight tracking companies can make millions of dollars a year. Just equal to a small corner of them is already a big revenue for me.”
Most recently, Jack said he identified a new jet attached to Mark Zuckerberg and reprogrammed the tracking account. The Meta CEO uses a jet chartered by his company.
The boss of Meta uses the Gulfstream G650 as his private jet. The jet is “indirectly and wholly owned by Mr. Zuckerberg and operated by an independent charter company for business and personal travel”. The Gulfstream G650 is a big business jet that’s been around since 2012.
The interior of Mark’s jet. Photo: Luxurylauches
At launch, a new Gulfstream G650 cost $64.5 million, rising to $73 million in 2014. The plane can carry between 11 and 19 passengers depending on cabin configuration. The G650 has a cruise speed of 1041 to 1102 km/h, a top speed of 1133 km/h and a range of up to 7,000 nautical miles.
According to information posted on the Twitter account, Zuckerberg’s jet has been traveling around the US for the past two months. Some stops can be mentioned as Pennsylvania, Massachusetts, New York, Texas and some other states. While most of the itineraries are long-distance, cross-country trips, there are some suspiciously short Mark flights, including the 18-mile (about 29 km) trip on October 15 and the 28-mile long flight miles (about 45 km) on August 28.
Zuckerberg’s jet made 28 different trips between August 20 and October 15, burning at least $158,448 in fuel and emitting more than 253 tons of carbon. According to the environmental nonprofit The Nature Conservancy, the average American has an annual carbon footprint of 16 tons.
Meta tried to explain Zuckerberg’s use of the private jet, claiming it was part of a “security program”. They said Zuckerberg flew privately to limit “appearance” and “specific threats” to personal safety.
Mark has made many short trips by plane. Photo: Twitter/@ZuccJet
Many billionaires have money but have to sell planes to ensure privacy
When asked why he created a Twitter account to follow Zuckerberg’s jet, Sweeney told Bloomberg: “I find it interesting that he follows us on Facebook, so it’s nice that I can follow along against him”.
While the explanation sounds like a fun quote, many celebrities and billionaires don’t respond to this. Some billionaires say jet chartering is safer in the current climate. Other billionaires, including the likes of Zuckerberg and Musk, may follow suit to avoid undue public scrutiny.
Previously, CEO Elon Musk used to be tracked by others on his private plane journey around the globe 24/7, forcing him to … ask to pay them to stop this but failed.
Elon Musk also shared the ‘fate’. Photo: The Times
In July 2022, information about billionaire Elon Musk’s flight surprised the public. Specifically, this billionaire’s jet was found to have made five-minute flights from Los Angeles International Airport to Hawthorne Airport, a journey of 9.6 km that a Tesla car would only take 10 minutes.
Compared to the person with the largest fortune in the world at $ 207.7 billion as of this October, the second richest person, Bernard Arnault, has a much more radical solution. Similar to Elon Musk, he is also tracked by a Twitter account 24/7 on the “movements” of a private jet.
The boss of LVMH, Bernard Arnault, has announced that his company has sold his private jet to avoid being tracked by such tracking accounts.
Just after people in Europe and the US suffered a record heat wave partly due to climate change, similar flights received a backlash because of their greenhouse gas emissions.
Source: CafeF
Source: Vietnam Insider