Account banned on Twitter for tracking Elon Musk's private jet is flying free on Zuckerberg's Threads — for now



Jack Sweeney, the man whose account was banned from Twitter for tracking Elon Musk's private jet, has emerged on Threads, Mark Zuckerberg's newly launched social media competitor, Gizmodo and other outlets reported.

Sweeney's first move on the new platform was to tag Meta Platforms CEO Mark Zuckerberg, asking if he would be allowed to stay.

Over the weekend, Sweeney began posting screenshots of what appears to be detailed data and maps tracking Musk's aircraft.

The first two tracking-specific posts showed a takeoff from Austin, Texas, and a landing in Brownsville.

A Monday afternoon post showed a graphical map of the plane supposedly flying from Brownsville to Los Angeles. The Monday post, notably, did not include a panel showing specific data about the flight such as its track, position, ground speed, altitude, and other figures.

"Any account doxxing real-time location info of anyone will be suspended, as it is a physical safety violation. This includes posting links to sites with real-time location info. Posting locations someone traveled to on a slightly delayed basis isn’t a safety problem, so is ok," Musk tweeted December 14, 2022, just ahead of Twitter permanently suspending Sweeney.

Musk announced a plan to take legal action against Sweeney in the same thread, saying a "crazy stalker" had followed a car carrying his son, as TheBlaze reported.

"Last night, car carrying lil X in LA was followed by crazy stalker (thinking it was me), who later blocked car from moving & climbed onto hood. Legal action is being taken against Sweeney & organizations who supported harm to my family," Musk tweeted December 14, 2022.

— (@)

Musk added a video of the driver that included a shot of the car and the car's license plate, asking if anyone recognized the person or the car.

"Remember when Elon said he would sue me. Just another empty threat," Sweeney said, apparently taunting Musk in a post to his Threads account.

Sweeney appended a screenshot of an article with the headline "Twitter threatens to sue Meta over rival Threads app."

Sweeney's Threads account had six posts as of Monday afternoon.

Meta Platforms' Threads, a direct competitor to Twitter, launched Thursday.

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Twitter Suspends Account Tracking Elon Musk’s Jet That He Once Defended On ‘Free Speech’ Grounds

Musk has publicly bristled at @ElonJet for publicizing his travel

Elon Musk offers teen $5,000 to shut down Twitter account tracking his private flights: Report



Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk reportedly offered a 19-year-old upwards of $5,000 for the teen to shut down a Twitter account that tracks his private flights, according to reports.

What are the details?

Nineteen-year-old Jack Sweeney told Protocol that Musk reached out to him via direct message on Twitter and asked if he would be willing to disable a Twitter account that tracks the billionaire tech entrepreneur's flights.

Sweeney, a college freshman who is said to run at least 15 flight-tracking accounts on Twitter, including an account called ElonJet, said that Musk told him, "Can you take this down? It is a security risk."

According to the report, the account in question is run by bots Sweeney programmed to monitor flight tracking data and tweet every time a particular plane has departed from an airport or landed at another. The ElonJet flight tracker has 123,000 followers at the time of this reporting.

"I don't love the idea of being shot by a nutcase," Musk reportedly added.

Sweeney said that he responded, "Yes I can but it'll cost you a Model 3 only joking unless?"

Musk later reportedly responded by saying that he would pay the college freshman $5,000 to disable the flight tracker.

An emboldened Sweeney said he then responded, "Any chance to up that to $50k? It would be great support in college and would possibly allow me to get a car maybe even a Model 3."

According to the report, Sweeney ultimately said he would do it for free — so long as the tech guru gave him an internship.

Musk reportedly did not respond to Sweeney's last message.

"The most recent [direct message] Musk and Sweeney exchanged was last Wednesday, when Sweeney said he’d prefer an internship over payment in return for deleting the account," the Protocol report concluded. "Musk hasn’t opened the message, Sweeney says, but he’s not offended. In fact, he thinks he knows why Musk went silent: 'I think he’s on vacay in Hawaii if you check ElonJet.'"