Elon Musk Abandons FAA Program Aimed at Camouflaging Private Jet Travels
Elon Musk, the CEO of Tesla, has reportedly ceased taking advantage of a Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) program designed to help conceal his air travels. According to aircraft-tracking company JetSpy, Musk signed up for the program in January 2022, which allows private jet owners to fly incognito using temporary aircraft registration numbers. However, he has not used the program since August 2022.
JetSpy revealed that Musk applied for new aircraft registration numbers four times, but only used the temporary number for one flight before returning to his permanent ICAO address. The program, known as the privacy ICAO aircraft address program (PIA), allows owners to switch out their registration number every 20 days. However, the process can be laborious due to paperwork requirements.
Musk’s attempt to avoid jet-tracking accounts gained attention when a college student named Jack Sweeney began posting the billionaire’s travel coordinates on social media. Musk offered Sweeney $5,000 to take down his account, but Sweeney advised him to sign up for the FAA’s PIA program instead. Since then, Musk’s jets have still been registered on the FAA’s “Limiting Aircraft Data Displayed” program, which prevents flight data from being shown on certain flight-tracking websites.
Sweeney, however, remains skeptical of Musk’s intentions, suggesting that the logistical challenges of constantly changing the code associated with the PIA program may be a reason for Musk’s discontinuation. Despite his efforts to avoid tracking, Musk’s frequent trips between SpaceX’s launch site in Texas and its headquarters in California have made it relatively easy to identify his Gulfstream.
The PIA program has been used by other high-profile individuals, such as Jeff Bezos and Taylor Swift, to disguise their air travels. However, the FAA acknowledges that it is not a foolproof solution, as alternative tracking methods still exist.
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