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In general, I agree. It surprises me that it's possible to follow Musk's whereabouts in this way, and I'd be uncomfortable if someone did this to me. That said,
by MrJohz 4y ago
In general, I agree. It surprises me that it's possible to follow Musk's whereabouts in this way, and I'd be uncomfortable if someone did this to me. That said, I think there are some mitigating factors here.
Firstly, the account doesn't track Musk himself, it tracks his private jet. If Musk wanted to, he could avoid the issue completely by chartering planes or just (heaven forbid!) flying in conventional airlines. Musk is explicitly making a convenience-privacy trade-off here.
Secondly, I think we do Musk a disservice by pretending that he is an ordinary person like me or you. He is, depending on your accounting, the world's richest person, which obviously affords him incredible luxury that we should bit begrudge, but it also means that he is one of the most influential people in the world. Bear in mind that he has recently bought one of the biggest media platforms in the world.
The problem with this is a principle of democracy is that power requires scrutiny. That's why we usually have a good idea of where our leaders are at any particular time - this obviously makes their lives difficult, but if we are going to hand power over to our presidents, prime ministers, and chancellors, then we should also demand accountability from them. But for Elon Musk, whose power comes solely from his wealth, there is no clear accountability. We have no right to know his whereabouts, or what he's doing with his money, or who he's being influenced by (and who he's influencing). His power is essentially unchecked (at least in the democratic sense) and limited only by the market.
So from that perspective, it seems very sensible and practically democratic to keep track of such powerful people.