Twitter Suspends Account Dedicated to Tracking Elon's Private Jet
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Twitter Suspends Account Dedicated to Tracking Elon's Private Jet

Comedy may be legal on Twitter now, but tracking the private jet of a billionaire you idolize is not.

ElonJet, the brainchild of 20-year-old Jack Sweeney, has been keeping up with Elon Musk's private jet adventures since 2020. The account eventually racked up over half a million followers, and Musk was not happy about it.

Before becoming Twitter's CEO, Musk approached Sweeney with an offer most people would refuse given the man's obscene amount of money: $5,000. Sweeney, realizing his skillset as a programmer and his access to a literal billionaire is worth far more, made a counteroffer of either $50,000 or an internship at one of Musk's companies.

You can guess what Musk decided to do. That's right! Nothing.

Musk felt that the account posed a security risk. However, the data is freely accessible. ElonJet uses bots that analyze the information provided by the Federal Aviation Administration and ADS-B transponders for a rough idea of the plane's location. Then, using the plane's altitude along with the time the data was received, the bots can determine when it takes off and lands.

After Musk finally acquired the platform, he asserted that part of making Twitter the free speech haven of his dreams means that he won't suspend ElonJet.

Narrator voice: "That was a lie."

On December 14, Sweeney woke up to find that both his personal account and ElonJet had been suspended. Musk then announced that he will be taking legal action against Sweeney. ElonJet supposedly violated the site's doxxing policy, but Musk clarified that posting locations on a slightly delayed basis is fine.

The suspension was spurred by an incident in which a stalker reportedly followed a car with Musk's son, X Æ A-Xii, assuming that the Twitter CEO was inside as well. The reported stalker's face and license plate were subsequently posted in an attempt to figure out who it is.

While the incident is unfortunate, ElonJet is not responsible for the stalking incident as it does not report on the locations of his cars and family, only the locations that his plane lands.

This is just the beginning for the former Musk fanboy Sweeney, who told Buzzfeed News, "Now I'm going to keep going on forever. I guess I can’t let him win now.”

In the meantime, you can still check out his high-flying adventures on Instagram to get your ElonJet fix.

Photo courtesy of Billy Farrell/BFA

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