Elon Musk Bans Jet Tracker Account

University of Central Florida sophomore Jack Sweeney launched a Twitter account a couple of years ago dubbed @ElonJet. The college student used publicly available air travel data to map Elon Musk’s trips. In November, the billionaire said he wouldn’t take the account down because he wanted to prove his commitment to free speech.

My commitment to free speech extends even to not banning the account following my plane, even though that is a direct personal safety risk

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) November 7, 2022

Musk has now broken that promise.

On Wednesday, December 14, Sweeney’s account was permanently suspended. According to The Washington Post, the college student received a message informing him his account broke the platform’s rules, but it didn’t state exactly which rules he’d broken. Later that evening, the account was briefly restored, and Twitter released new rules to prohibit users from publishing public data about the current whereabouts of his plane and other prominent people.

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 threatened to sue Sweeney, claiming a car that his son, X Æ A-12, was in had been followed. The “crazy stalker,” as Musk called him, blocked the car and climbed on the hood. He implied the college student was somehow to blame and claimed legal action was being taken. The account was once again suspended.

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.

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) December 15, 2022

Sweeney told the WaPo that the billionaire’s actions “look terrible” because he had previously said he was “keeping [the] account up for free speech.”