ElonJet is back! Student tracking Musk's private jet finds clever Twitter workaround
San Francisco, California - Jack Sweeney, the college student who became something of a nemesis for Elon Musk, is back on Twitter with a slightly rejigged version of his account tracking the billionaire's private jet.
Sweeney first set up @ElonJet in 2020, using publicly available flight data to track Musk's jet.
That lead to threats of a lawsuit and allegedly even a hard cash offer to take the account down, before Musk's takeover of Twitter allowed him to take much more drastic measures: banning both @ElonJet and Sweeney's personal account after accusations of doxxing.
But the 20-year-old University of Central Florida student has kept his promise of not giving up. On Thursday evening, he debuted @ElonJetNextDay – basically the same account, but with flight data "delayed by 24 hours."
This is an ingenious way of getting around Twitter's new ban on posting "real-time location info," Musk's dubious justification for banning not just Sweeney's project, but also journalists covering his actions.
Sweeney aims to restore other flight tracking accounts
In an interview with Insider, Sweeney said he is tweeting the updates manually, as opposed to his previous method of setting up a bot that does it automatically.
He also has plans to bring back most of his accounts tracking the private jets of other billionaires and celebrities, like Amazon founder Jeff Bezos and pop star Taylor Swift. Meanwhile, the original @ElonJet is still accessible on other social media platforms, Sweeney told Insider.
It remains to be seen whether Musk will find a new way to stop his Twitter workaround.
Cover photo: Collage: 123rf/kantver & REUTERS