Elon Musk takes legal action to stop his jet from being tracked

The account, called the "Elon Musk's Jet"(@ElonJet), monitors the movements of the billionaire's private jet via bots that are always reporting air traffic data. This is public information, simply reposted to Twitter, which means Sweeney is breaking no laws.

Despite this, Sweeney received a message in the fall of 2021 which read: "Can you take this down? It is a security risk.” Sweeney then responded: "Yes I can but it'll cost you a Model 3 only joking unless?" 

A counter offer that was refused

That is when Musk offered to pay the college student $5,000. Sweeney countered his offer by saying: "Any chance to up that to $50k? It would be a great support in college and would possibly allow me to get a car maybe even a Model 3.”

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.

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) December 15, 2022

Musk, who is known for being notoriously cheap, said he would consider the deal but never went ahead with it. The saga has continued with Twitter now suspending both Sweeney’s personal account and his jet-tracking account.

Sweeney’s other accounts that track the private flights of other wealthy Americans, including Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates, Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, and Meta Chief Executive Officer Mark Zuckerberg, have also been suspended since Wednesday afternoon. 

A change of mind

In the past, Musk had said he would keep the accounts running but on Wednesday evening he tweeted:  "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." 

Twitter's Help Center also tweeted an updated media policy that states: "You may not publish or post other people's private information without their express authorization and permission." 

Sweeney told the BBC that he did not believe that Musk’s stalker incident had anything to do with his account. This may very well be the case but there’s no doubt that tracking the movements of famous people can be dangerous. 

Although Musk is known for his occasional erratic impulsive behavior, it does seem that in this case he is right in suspending all accounts tracking people.