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- Elon Musk is the US citizen who travels by private jet more than anyone else.
- The carbon footprint of his private flights alone is 132 times greater than the average American.
- According to a recent report from the Institute for Policy Studies and Patriotic Millionaires.
Elon Musk travelled more by private plane than anyone else in the US during the last year, according a new report released on Monday by the Institute for Policy Studies (IPS) and Patriotic Millionaires.
His travel habits are having a significant impact on the climate. He took a private plane nearly every other day, in average.
Private planes have a bad reputation for being harmful to the environment. Transport & Environment, a non-profit organization, found that private planes emit up to fourteen times more pollution than commercial aircraft per passenger, because they have fewer passengers.
The report revealed that Musk's carbon footprint in 2022 from his 171 flights was 132x larger than the total footprint of an average US resident from all their activities. The report said that his private plane used about 221,358 jet fuel gallons and produced about 2,112 tons of carbon dioxide emissions in the past year.
It is noteworthy that the billionaire has a massive carbon footprint, especially given his company's mission to reduce transportation emissions. Bloomberg reported that Tesla estimated its electric cars saved its customers 8.4 million tons of greenhouse gas emissions by 2021.
Musk is among a growing group of ultra-wealthy individuals who fly privately regularly — a trend that has exploded in the US during the last few years. The report shows that private-jet usage — and the emissions it produces — have increased by about 20% since the pandemic. The report notes that Musk bought an additional private plane in the past year, a $78m Gulfstream G700 – the world's biggest purpose-built jet – that is expected to replace his G50ER.
Chuck Collins, director of the Program on Income Inequality and Common Good at the Institute for Policy Studies, and co-author of the report said about Musk, "It's more than him." "He is an example of excessive excess."
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Insider's comment to Tesla was not immediately answered by a Tesla spokesperson.
The report recommends the government double its federal jet-fuel taxes — from $0.219 to $0.438 a gallon — as well as impose a tax on both the sale of new and used private planes. The report found that Musk would have paid $3.9m in taxes for the purchase of a new plane under a proposed 5% tax and almost $97,000 in federal jet fuel taxes in the past year.
Collins, speaking of private aviation, said that if we cannot phase it out we should tax it heavily and use the money to improve our transit system.
Collins said Musk deserved a little more scrutiny than some other billionaires jet-setters, because he has tried to silence watchdogs that have exposed his travel patterns.
Musk suspended the account @ElonJet shortly after he bought Twitter in the past year. The student, Jack Sweeney, had been tracking and posting the location of Musk's private jet. Musk called the live tracking "a violation of physical safety." Jack Sweeney has created a new account called @ElonJetNextDay that posts delayed updates about Musk's flights.
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By: insider@insider.com (Eliza Relman)
Title: Elon Musk’s private jet emitted 132 times as much carbon as the average American does in an entire year
Sourced From: www.businessinsider.com/elon-musk-private-jet-carbon-footprint-climate-change-2023-4
Published Date: Tue, 02 May 2023 15:17:52 +0000
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