Jack Sweeney and Getty
- Jack Sweeney, the teen who tracked Elon Musk’s private jet, says he will keep tracking the plane.
- Sweeney wrote in a Newsweek op-ed that he plans to track the jet on “different platforms.”
- “If I give up now, it’s kind of like letting the big guy win,” Sweeney wrote.
Jack Sweeney, the college student known for “Elonjet,” a private plane-tracking Twitter account, says he doesn’t plan to stop monitoring Musk’s jet.
Sweeney wrote in a Newsweek op-ed published on Thursday that he wants to keep tracking the plane on different social media platforms.
“If I give up now, it’s kind of like letting the big guy win,” Sweeney wrote.
Sweeney added in his op-ed that he does not care that “Elonjet” was suspended from Musk’s Twitter, saying that he already has a presence on Mastodon, Facebook, Truth Social, Instagram, and Telegram.
“I don’t have to follow Musk’s rules on other platforms, and I don’t have to worry about him watching my account,” Sweeney wrote.
Twitter on Wednesday updated its “Private Information policy,” which now prohibits “sharing someone else’s live location in most cases.” But before that announcement, over 30 of Sweeney’s accounts were banned on Wednesday under Musk’s updated privacy policy. This suspension included accounts that tracked other private planes, like those owned by Jeff Bezos and former President Donald Trump.
“Twitter was my core platform, as I had 500,000 followers, but my accounts are gaining speed on other platforms,” he added.
Sweeney said in his op-ed that he is “still a fan of Musk’s ventures,” despite being banned from Twitter.
Musk on Wednesday also threatened legal action against Sweeney, alleging that the publication of real-time location information led to a “crazy stalker” approaching a car that was carrying his son, X, in Los Angeles.
That’s a U-turn on his previous stance — Musk had tweeted in November that his “commitment to free speech extends even to not banning the account following my plane, even though that is a direct personal safety risk.”
Sweeney referenced Musk’s recent tweets in the op-ed, saying “I don’t think my Elonjet account could have led a ‘crazy stalker’ to his car.”
“I’m tracking his plane, not the car, so I don’t see how it could be connected,” he added.
Regarding the threat of legal action from Musk, Sweeney says he feels “slightly” intimidated, but gathers that there “doesn’t seem to be any legal ground for a lawsuit.”
“I’m just posting information that’s already out there,” Sweeney wrote.
Musk did not immediately respond to Insider’s request for comment.
