Elon Musk Sparks Outrage Over 9-Minute Flight From San Jose to San Francisco

Talk about time is money. Elon Musk opted to take a 9-minute flight rather than a 40-minute car ride, and it has many fired up.

Musk’s private jet flew from San Jose to San Francisco, a 35-mile flight, Twitter users who tracked the tech mogul’s movements claimed.

The super-short flight across San Francisco Bay occurred on May 6. Still, it wasn’t until last weekend that Twitter users widely shared the satellite map that showed his plane’s flight path, with many expressing outrages over the carbon footprint left behind by the man who owns the electric car company, Tesla.

“Elon Musk took a 9-minute flight to San Francisco from San Jose, which is five stops on Caltrain,” tweeted Hayden Clarkin. The train is a local commuter rail that connects San Francisco with cities to its south along the Bay, the New York Post reported. “I literally have no words,” Clarkin added.

According to the map, Musk’s plane flew from San Jose International Airport to San Francisco International Airport.

Ken Klippenstein tweeted a picture of the short flight path beside a message from Musk, in which he wrote: “Tesla exists to help reduce the risk of catastrophic climate change, which affects all species on Earth.”

“Even if your faith in humanity is faltering, this is worth caring about,” Musk tweeted in 2018. “Support makes a difference. Thank you.”

Andrew Ross Sorkin looked at the short flight from a different view, “The plane was likely just being ‘repositioned’ — as in the plane was sitting at one airport and then was moved to a different airport to pick up its passengers,” Sorkin tweeted.

Elon Musk took a 9-minute flight to San Francisco from San Jose, which is 5 stops on Caltrain. I literally have no words. pic.twitter.com/dToHAkxBFF

— Hayden Clarkin (@the_transit_guy) August 21, 2022

“This happens all the time. Planes often sit at a less busy airport and then fly to another one close by.”

However, Sorkin’s suggestion didn’t convince everyone. One commenter wrote: “Lol, dude, that’s still an insanely short and wasteful flight, carrying passengers or not. Hilarious, you see it as your job to defend the absurd excesses of billionaires.”