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If I buy a private jet and use it to fly around the world, people would have access to the same information as they do on Elon Musk. He wants the convenience of having his own jet, that comes with a cost.


Let's remove Elon Musk from this.

If I buy a [legal private means of transportation] to travel, people should be able to track my whereabouts.

Is this limited to private jets? How about private boats? Single engine airplanes? Or is there a price cap? Is a $50k plane allow you to maintain privacy? 100k? What's the cutoff? Should it be inflation adjusted?

I'm just trying to understand


My comment was about the known requirements for air travel. You have to register your flight and that information is available. He has other options that would more safely guarantee privacy. If the privacy of your travels is more important to you than the convenience of having a private plane available, then you choose another option.


both civilian jets and big civilian boats are required to broadcast their position when under power, sometimes also when stationary.

so yeah. you can't buy that kind of privacy unless you want a nation state air force on your six, or some kind of a patrol boat in case of a yacht.


> Is this limited to private jets? How about private boats? Single engine airplanes? Or is there a price cap? Is a $50k plane allow you to maintain privacy? 100k? What's the cutoff? Should it be inflation adjusted?

I recommend that you read this.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loki%27s_Wager

One does not need to answer literally every single edge case or scenario, to answer other more obvious questions.

Elon Musk is a public figure. A random person driving a car is not. And everything in between is a spectrum, and we don't need to know the exact specific cutoff point to know the obvious answers here.


How about a spaceship?

Should spaceship flights be private? :)


You cannot remove Elon Musk from the discussion. He is a public figure[0]; the same discussion would not apply to you (I presume) or me (I know).

What exactly a 'public figure' is depends on the given legal system. But its pretty clear that is a public figure, by any definition. He's among the most wealthy (some might say; obscenely wealthy) persons on the planet and thus enjoys outrages amounts of social and political leverage.

Of course he doesn't enjoy the same rights to privacy as you and me.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_figure




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