Elon Jet, the Twitter account that used public data to monitor Elon Musk’s private jet movements, has been shut down permanently by the social media platform.
“My commitment to free speech extends even to not banning the account following my plane, even though that is a direct personal safety risk,” Musk tweeted on November 6. Over the last month, it seems Musk changed his mind.
Jack Sweeney, a University of Central Florida student, has had his Twitter account banned, along with the automated flight trackers he operated.
Among the accounts he operated was @ElonJet, which tracked the private jet activity of tech moguls such as Mark Zuckerberg and Elon Musk’s brother, Kimbal Musk.
This was a sore spot for Musk for some time, as in January he had offered Sweeney $5,000 to delete @ElonJet, an offer Sweeney turned down. When asked if he could up the offer to $50,000, Sweeney replied that it would be a great support in college and might even allow him to get a car, possibly even a Model 3.
John Sweeney, the proprietor of the Twitter handle @ElonJet, has alleged that his account was “visibility limited” on December 2, according to a post from his personal Twitter account.
Sweeney also posted a screenshot, reportedly leaked from Twitter’s internal Slack, that appears to show Twitter’s Trust and Safety Vice President Ella Irwin requesting that the team apply high visibility filtering to @ElonJet. TechCrunch has sent an inquiry to Irwin to confirm the legitimacy of the message.
In the wake of his Twitter suspension, Sweeney has set up an Elon Jet account on Mastodon.