It wouldn't take much word association to connect the two without human involvement. It doesn't matter to the purpose of this discussion though, since Google has created this association it's available to everyone.
But it's all over the net because someone, possibly @elonjet, originally figured out it was his jet and posted it online. That made it easier for people to find his jet, and that is a security concern for Musk. I'm not saying this information was originally super hard to uncover for someone who knew what to do. I'm saying there is some increased security risk now that this information is easily accessible.
I think most of us would be uncomfortable with being tracked live in his situation.
If this was actually a security threat, the man could take chartered flights anonymously forever with a rounding error's worth of his money. Opsec is clearly not important to him.
It's the Elon show. He needs the attention and doesn't care if it's positive or negative.
I find it absurd how many people are against automated license plate readers (even privately owned ones) but simultaneously welcome the complete lack of privacy for aircraft. If someone replied, “Just use a taxi/Uber/Lyft.” in response to ALPRs they’d be downvoted into obscurity, and rightly so. But change the transport mechanism and suddenly it’s fair. The hypocrisy could not be more obvious.
It's very clearly not. Even if the Internet didn't exist, the data is there over the airwaves ready to be picked up by anyone with the slightest interest to listen.
Also notice how this applies to everyone, every airplane. Every celebrity, every politician, even every little private plane, even the president. Those are the rules. Elon isn't special and doesn't get special treatment.
> I think most of us would be uncomfortable
Uncomfortable, perhaps yes. But that's the price of being a celebrity. Paparazzi and all that. When you're unimaginably rich and famous, people track you. Happens to every famous musician, actor, etc. That's the deal. Elon doesn't get to be special.
He created this 'problem' out of nothing. It's an act. If he feared for his family's safety there are ways to tackle the problem that aren't purely performative.
Credit card transactions also aren't protected from marketing tracking activities, neither are Twitter or Facebook ads, neither is what my isp can discover from my dns requests, cell phone providers can sell my location metadata, and the credit bureaus are ordinary businesses with huge data leaks.
This is public information, police can operate on it without a warrant, and whether we're driving, flying a private jet, walking in a town square, or purchasing a coffee, or browse the internet - other private entities can too.
LifeLock and identity theft protection are sold to everybody, tax forms allow anybody to try to use someone else's number - the government refuses to do anything, and companies have minimum privacy + security requirements.
It's almost never difficult to find out what private jets companies and celebrities own in any case, except when obfuscated behind multiple layers of shell companies and with strict opsec, neither of which Musk practiced.
Every aircraft is tracked and trackable this way, only Musk is turning it into a big deal using outrageous claims about safety. Get real.
Same thing if I put a tracking device on your personal conveyance.
AF1 routinely turns off their ADSB transponder, as do military aircraft. They generally do not when operating in high traffic areas, but will if they are over commercial airspace and want to mask their position.
While this data's purpose is primarily for safety and to make ATC job easier, it was never intended to used as a public tracking system.
What would it take to change your mind about this? There have already been close calls. Would someone actually have to harm Musk or his family? And you didn't address my ALPR analogy at all. Why does it matter whether the mode of transportation is a car or a plane?
1. https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1603190155107794944
2. https://twitter.com/DavidSacks/status/1603857524574531584
There's also no context in that video, it's just a clip of a person in a car. I do not take Elon's word for anything, he's demonstrated over and over and over that he will act in bad faith. The one party he probably would/should not lie to, the police, doesn't seem to have any report from him about this event.
[1] https://twitter.com/EliotHiggins/status/1603454821700452365
[2] https://www.facebook.com/ElonJet/posts/pfbid02Ldh5x93kQe6E6E...