Jack Sweeney seems to be determined and unwavering in his commitment to tracking Elon Musk’s private jet. The 20-year-old’s original account was banned from Twitter under the new rules that were introduced after Musk took the charge as the CEO of the microblogging platform recently. However, Sweeney is back on Twitter under the new username @ElonJetNextDay and will continue to track Musk’s private jet. However, there’s a tiny little caveat. The tracking data won’t be real-time and would rather be posted with a 24-hour delay in accordance with the new rules. Sweeney told Insider during an interview that he will be “posting manually” for now as “the framework for automating isn’t there yet.” He also said that the original fully-automated @ElonJet account is still functional on other social media platforms, including former President Donald Trump’s Truth Social.
Sweeney started tracking the billionaire’s private jet two years ago by using publicly available tracking data and posting it on Twitter. However, it caught Musk’s attention and the Tesla CEO famously sent a DM to him back in January with the request to take down the account in exchange for $5000. Calling it a security risk, Musk apparently wrote: “I don’t love the idea of being shot by a nutcase.” However, Sweeney refused the offer and jokingly asked for a Model 3 or $50,000 instead. While Elon refused to pay heed to the demand made by the college kid, he definitely didn’t forget it.
The headline-grabbing @ElonJet account was back in the news a little more than a week ago when Twitter announced a new policy to ban the posting of someone’s live location in most cases. It was apparently triggered by a recent incident where a car carrying his son X Æ A-12 was followed by a “crazy stalker” in LA. Over 30 accounts set up by Sweeney to track politicians and billionaires were all suspended along with his personal account. “Any account doxxing real-time location info of anyone will be suspended, as it is a physical safety violation,” Musk tweeted on December 15. “This includes posting links to sites with real-time location info.” The new Twitter CEO later added: “Posting locations someone traveled to on a slightly delayed basis isn’t a safety problem, so is ok.”
