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ElonJet
Original author(s)Jack Sweeney
Developer(s)Ground Control[1] (GRNDCTRL LLC[1][2][3])
Repository
Websitegrndcntrl.net/falconlanding/ Edit this on Wikidata
Account as seen on Instagram, 2022

ElonJet is a service that uses social media accounts to track the real-time usage of Elon Musk's private airplane.[4][5][6] The service, created and provided by Jack Sweeney using public data, has accounts on Facebook, Instagram, Telegram, Truth Social, Mastodon, Threads, Bluesky, and formerly on Twitter, where the Twitter account once had about 530,000 followers, before being suspended.[7][8][9] Several of the social media accounts use the handle @elonjet.[10]

The Twitter account, created in June 2020, had been targeted by Musk beginning in 2021. He offered to pay Sweeney $5,000; Sweeney countered requesting $50,000 or an internship in one of Musk's companies, and offered advice on restricting flight tracking data. Musk blocked Sweeney in January 2021[dubious – discuss]. In late 2022, after Musk purchased Twitter, he announced he would not ban the ElonJet account.[11] In December, a stalker followed Elon's 2-year-old son while he was traveling in a car; the stalker thought Musk was in the car.[12] After the incident, the account was restricted and then blocked along with Sweeney's personal and other flight tracking accounts, as part of the December 2022 Twitter account suspensions.[13] Later, shortly after the incident, accounts of several journalists were reinstated.[14]

On December 22, 2022, Sweeney started the new @ElonJetNextDay Twitter account, which continues to track the flights of Elon Musk's private jets, but publishes flight location information on a 24-hour delay in compliance with Twitter's new rules that "sharing publicly available location information after a reasonable time has elapsed, so that the individual is no longer at risk for physical harm" is not a violation.[15]

Function

The ElonJet service uses publicly available flight data as well as an automated computer program, a Twitter bot, to report Elon Musk's flights.[16] The service uses ADS-B data, publicly available records, to give general information about where and when Musk's private jet was taking off and landing, though it cannot indicate who is on board or where the passengers travel before or after the flight. The Twitter account in particular became a reliable way for Musk's investors, fans, and critics to determine his whereabouts, often between the Austin area where he lives, the San Francisco Bay area where Tesla's factory is, and Southern California, where SpaceX is headquartered.[8]

As of July 2023, the ElonJet service is hosted on Twitter, Facebook, Telegram, Instagram, Threads, Mastodon, and Bluesky accounts.[17][18] The Mastodon account was created on December 14, 2022, a day after the original Twitter account was suspended.[8][19] Sweeney has earned a few thousand dollars with the accounts, via ad revenue, allowing him to upgrade his computer.[20] A subreddit dedicated to the service, r/ElonJetTracker, gained over 40,000 members in the two days since it was created on December 14, becoming one of the fastest-growing subreddits on the website.[9]

History

The ElonJet Twitter account was started in June 2020 by Florida student Jack Sweeney.[21] At the time, he was a high school senior, with his education suspended during the COVID-19 pandemic lockdown.[20] Sweeney considered himself a fan of Musk's work at SpaceX and Tesla, leading him to start the account.[21]

Elon Musk has had issues with the account for a long time, and offered Jack Sweeney $5,000 to delete the account in 2021. Sweeney countered asking for $50,000, saying he would use the money for college and possibly to buy a Tesla Model 3. Their last exchange was in January 2022, when Musk said it wouldn't feel right to pay in order to shut the account down.[7] Sweeney asked about the possibility of an internship at one of Musk's companies, and offered Musk advice, including about a federal privacy program to vary the ID his transponder beamed out, thus blocking flight tracking programs. Musk began using the program, though Sweeney remained able to track Musk's flights.[22][20] Musk blocked Sweeney sometime after January 23.[23]

Avatar of Elon Musk
Avatar of Elon Musk
 Elon Musk
@elonmusk
 Twitter logo, a stylized blue bird

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

November 6, 2022[24]

Musk purchased Twitter in October 2022, and announced early in the next month that he would not ban the ElonJet account, as he is an advocate for free speech, despite a "direct personal safety risk". On December 10, Sweeney shared his discovery that the Twitter account had been shadow banned, where Twitter intentionally limits the account's reach within the site. Twitter's Trust and Safety Council vice president asked to place "heavy visibility filtering" on the account. The council was disbanded on December 12, and that day Sweeney reported that the account no longer seemed hidden in any way.[21]

On the morning of December 14, the social media site suspended the ElonJet account. Later that day, it was briefly reinstated and accessible, along with new rules having been released by Twitter that outlined limitations on sharing real-time location information due to concerns about physical safety,[25] indicating that slightly delayed information would be acceptable under the new policy. According to the Washington Post, Sweeney then asked Musk how long of a data feed delay was required to comply with new rules, but the ElonJet account was re-suspended by the evening of the same day. Sweeney's personal Twitter account was also blocked, along with all of his other accounts that tracked private flights of public figures and Russian oligarchs.[7][26][8] On December 15, the Twitter account of rival social network Mastodon was also blocked, for tweeting about the situation. According to The Verge, "it appears Twitter counts a link to @ElonJet's Mastodon account as a violation" of their newest policy against linking to third-party URLs that provide real-time travel information.[27] The accounts of multiple journalists who frequently cover the technology industry were also banned for reporting on the issue.[28]

On December 14, 2022, Musk announced he would be taking legal action against Sweeney.[7] On the same evening, Musk alleged in a tweet that a "crazy stalker" had followed a car carrying his 2-year-old son. The incident is claimed to have occurred in Los Angeles, in which the accused individual "blocked [the] car from moving" and "climbed onto [the] hood" according to Musk. While Sweeney has posted publicly available information about Musk's private jets, flights, and airports used, Sweeney has not shared information about Musk's family members or Musk's cars.[8] A Los Angeles Police detective in the stalking investigations unit said the unit had no evidence indicating the alleged stalker had used ElonJet.[29] Regarding the incident, South Pasadena police said they were investigating a report of "an assault with a deadly weapon involving a vehicle", and labelled a member of Musk's security team as a "suspect". The statement also mentioned that "At no time during the incident did the victim identify the suspect or indicate the altercation was anything more than coincidental".[30]

Sweeney stated that despite Musk's intention to sue, he does not plan to stop monitoring Musk's airplane travel and will continue publishing the flight-tracking information by using other social media platforms, including on his new Mastodon account.[31] One day later, on December 15, Twitter suspended the accounts of nine journalists of national news organizations without warning, as part of what was referred to as the "Thursday Night Massacre",[32][33][34] after they had posted links to the ElonJet account or similar jet trackers.[35] Musk claimed reporters had doxxed him and his family, and alleged that, by covering the ElonJet story, they were linking to real-time flight information, which is "basically assassination coordinates" according to Musk.[10]

Account Suspensions by Meta

In October 2024, Meta suspended the @elonmusksjet account on Instagram, and Threads accounts as well as the corresponding Facebook pages, along with several other jet-tracking accounts managed by Sweeney, including @Trump_Jet, @DesantisJet, @celebrityjets, @kimkjet, @kyliejennerjet, @bezosjets, @zuckerbergjet, and @taylorswiftjets.[36][37][38][39]

These accounts had operated on Meta platforms for years without incident, using publicly available flight data to track private jets. Sweeney initially launched these on Meta platforms after being suspended from X/Twitter. ElonJet was also added to Threads in July of 2023 when Threads was released. [40][41] Meta did not provide a specific reason for the sudden enforcement, only stating that the accounts now violated their policies. When pressed, Meta referenced an Oversight Board decision that involved privacy concerns around home addresses. However, this reasoning was contested by the account owner, who noted that the Oversight decision was not relevant to public aircraft data. Flight tracking, unlike home address data, is widely accessible through public sources such ADS-B and the FAA.

Originally, @DesantisJet and @Trump_Jet were not suspended, an inconsistency that was pointed out in media coverage, including a report from Fortune[42] . After that article, the accounts were suspended. The user criticized Meta's decision for a lack of transparency, as no policy violations had previously been cited.

References

  1. ^ a b "Ground Control". grndcntrl.net. Archived from the original on 2024-01-02. Retrieved 2024-01-02.
  2. ^ "GRNDCTRL LLC". OpenCorporates. 2021-12-02. Archived from the original on 2024-01-02. Retrieved 2024-01-02.
  3. ^ "Detail by Entity Name - Florida Limited Liability Company - GRNDCTRL LLC". search.sunbiz.org. Archived from the original on 2024-01-02. Retrieved 2024-01-02.
  4. ^ "Elon Musk's Twitter Brings Back Right-Wing Users Amid Journalist Suspensions". HuffPost. 2022-12-17. Archived from the original on 2022-12-17. Retrieved 2022-12-17.
  5. ^ "Twitter Bans, Restores, Then Bans Again Account That Tracked Elon Musk's Private Jet". HuffPost. 2022-12-14. Archived from the original on 2022-12-17. Retrieved 2022-12-17.
  6. ^ Wise, Jeff (2022-12-16). "Is Elon Musk Right That Flight Tracking Is an Invasion of Privacy?". Slate Magazine. Archived from the original on 2022-12-16. Retrieved 2022-12-17.
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  8. ^ a b c d e "Musk bans Twitter account tracking his jet, threatens to sue creator". Washington Post. ISSN 0190-8286. Archived from the original on 2022-12-15. Retrieved 2022-12-15.
  9. ^ a b Press-Reynolds, Kieran. "A new subreddit dedicated to the Elon Musk jet tracker is one of the fastest-growing pages on the website, with almost 40,000 members in 2 days". Insider. Archived from the original on 2024-03-16. Retrieved 2022-12-17.
  10. ^ a b Farhi, Paul (16 December 2022) [First published 15 December 2022]. "Musk suspends journalists from Twitter, claims 'assassination' danger". The Washington Post. ISSN 0190-8286. Archived from the original on 16 December 2022. Retrieved 16 December 2022.
  11. ^ @elonmusk (November 7, 2022). "My commitment to free speech extends even to not banning the account following my plane, even though that is a direct personal safety risk" (Tweet) – via Twitter.
  12. ^ "Elon Musk furious after man follows car carrying son; warns account suspensions over doxxing". Free Press Journal. Archived from the original on 2023-09-07. Retrieved 2023-09-07.
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  16. ^ Abbany, Zulfikar, ed. (March 1, 2022). "How a teenager's Twitter tracks Russian oligarchs". Deutsche Welle. Archived from the original on March 8, 2022. Retrieved March 8, 2022.
  17. ^ Holt, Kris (July 7, 2023). "Meta restores Instagram and Threads account that tracked Elon Musk's private jet". Engadget. Archived from the original on July 8, 2023. Retrieved July 9, 2023.
  18. ^ Weatherbed, Jess (10 July 2023). "The Elon Musk private jet tracker resurfaces on Threads and immediately goads Mark Zuckerberg". The Verge. Archived from the original on 10 July 2023. Retrieved 10 July 2023.
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  20. ^ a b c "Florida college student tracking Elon Musk's jet doesn't plan to stop". Tampa Bay Times. Archived from the original on 2022-12-14. Retrieved 2022-12-15.
  21. ^ a b c Capoot, Ashley. "Twitter suspends account dedicated to tracking Elon Musk's private jet". CNBC. Archived from the original on 2022-12-15. Retrieved 2022-12-15.
  22. ^ Maruf, Ramishah (2022-01-30). "Elon Musk offered a Florida teen $5,000 to delete a Twitter account tracking his jet. It wasn't enough | CNN Business". CNN. Archived from the original on 2022-03-05. Retrieved 2022-12-15.
  23. ^ "Teen rejects Elon Musk's $5,000 offer to shut down jet tracker". NBC News. Archived from the original on 2022-12-15. Retrieved 2022-12-15.
  24. ^ Elon Musk [@elonmusk] (November 6, 2022). "My commitment to free speech extends even to not banning the account following my plane, even though that is a direct personal safety risk" (Tweet). Archived from the original on November 7, 2022 – via Twitter.
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  26. ^ "Elon Musk Had His Most Absurd, Disturbing 24 Hours at Twitter Yet". www.vice.com. Archived from the original on 2022-12-15. Retrieved 2022-12-15.
  27. ^ Peters, Jay (December 15, 2022). "Twitter suspends Mastodon after it tweeted about Elon's jet". The Verge. Archived from the original on 16 December 2022. Retrieved 16 December 2022.
  28. ^ Darcy, Oliver (2022-12-16). "Elon Musk's Twitter bans accounts of CNN, NYT, WaPo journalists". CNN. Archived from the original on 2022-12-16. Retrieved 2022-12-16.
  29. ^ Harwell, Drew; Lorenz, Taylor (December 18, 2022). "Elon Musk blamed a Twitter account for a stalker. Police see no link". The Washington Post. Archived from the original on December 19, 2022.
  30. ^ Ingram, David; Blankstein, Andrew (December 21, 2022). "California police say member of Elon Musk's security team is a suspect following stalker claim". NBC News. Archived from the original on December 20, 2022. Retrieved December 21, 2022.
  31. ^ Teh, Cheryl (December 15, 2022). "The college student tracking Elon Musk's private plane says he'll continue monitoring Musk on different platforms: 'If I give up now, it's kind of like letting the big guy win'". Insider. Archived from the original on 16 December 2022. Retrieved 16 December 2022.
  32. ^ Lee, Micah (December 16, 2022). "Elon Musk Is Taking Aim at Journalists. I'm One of Them". The Intercept. Archived from the original on December 16, 2022. Retrieved December 16, 2022. I got suspended from Twitter yesterday. I'm one of at least eight journalists who were casualties of Elon Musk's 'Thursday Night Massacre,' after the billionaire went on a power-hungry suspension spree.
  33. ^ Dang, Sheila (December 16, 2022). "Elon Musk restores Twitter accounts of journalists but concerns persist". Montreal Gazette. Associated Press. Retrieved 18 December 2022. Critics say the 'Thursday Night Massacre' is more evidence of the 'free speech absolutist' billionaire eliminating speech and users he personally dislikes
  34. ^ "Musk says he will restore recently suspended journalists' Twitter accounts". CNBC. Reuters. December 17, 2022. Archived from the original on 18 December 2022. Retrieved 19 December 2022. The episode, which one well known security researcher labeled the 'Thursday Night Massacre,' is being regarded by critics as fresh evidence of Musk, who considers himself a 'free speech absolutist,' eliminating speech and users he personally dislikes.
  35. ^ Abbruzzese, Jason; Collier, Kevin; Helsel, Phil (16 December 2022). "Twitter suspends journalists who have been covering Elon Musk and the company". CNBC. Archived from the original on 16 December 2022. Retrieved 16 December 2022.
  36. ^ "Jack Sweeney's statement on Meta suspending jet-tracking accounts". Threads. 2024-10-22. Retrieved 2024-11-04.
  37. ^ "Meta suspends private jet-tracking accounts for Trump, Musk, and others". The Washington Post. 2024-10-22. Retrieved 2024-11-04.
  38. ^ NBC News (October 22, 2024). "Meta bans jet-tracking accounts for Trump, Musk, Zuckerberg". Retrieved November 4, 2024.
  39. ^ Wall Street Journal (October 22, 2024). "Meta bans accounts that track celebrity jet travel, including for Zuckerberg". Retrieved November 4, 2024.
  40. ^ "Elon Musk's private jet tracker lands on Threads". The Verge. 2023-07-10. Retrieved 2024-11-04.
  41. ^ "College student who tracks Elon Musk's jet joins Threads after Twitter suspension". CNN. 2023-07-10. Retrieved 2024-11-04.
  42. ^ "The college student who tracks private jets of Mark Zuckerberg, Elon Musk, and Taylor Swift says his Meta Threads accounts were suspended". Fortune. 2024-10-22. Retrieved 2024-11-04.
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