A 20-year-old fan started tracking Elon Musk’s private jet in 2020, but the billionaire threatened to sue him after suspending his Twitter accounts two years later.
Insider has learned that Sweeney will continue to track Musk’s private jet using the new username @ElonJetNextDay. The move follows Musk’s acquisition of Twitter, where he is now the new CEO.
The ElonJet but delayed flight (@ElonJetNextDay) December 22, 2022
Sweeney told Insider on Thursday that he will “post manually” for now because “the framework for automating isn’t there yet.” It is hard to predict when the account will be fully automated.
Besides @ElonJet, Sweeney will be bringing other accounts such as @Celebjets to Instagram and Facebook. He added that “@ElonJet is still available elsewhere” such as on former President Donald Trump’s Truth Social.
Including Trump, Mark Zuckerberg, and Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, Sweeney had over 30 accounts tracking politicians and billionaires.
Musk, who had earlier this year offered to pay Sweeney to take down the old account, took issue with it after information about his and other public figures’ whereabouts was shared online, including after he claimed a “crazy stalker” followed his son’s car.
As of the same time, Twitter announced a new policy banning the posting of live locations in most cases. It said the update was “to prohibit sharing someone else’s live location in most cases,” removing tweets and suspending accounts dedicated to sharing people’s live locations.
The new rules do not prohibit sharing publicly available location information after a reasonable time has passed, so that the individual is no longer at risk of physical harm.
Musk tweeted on December 15 that any account posting real-time location information about anyone would be suspended. “This includes linking to real-time location information sites.”
According to him, posting locations on a slightly delayed basis isn’t a safety issue.
Insider contacted Twitter for comment, but it did not respond immediately.
