Elon Musk Says He's Going To Take Legal Action Against ElonJet Creator
The saga of a bot account tracking Elon Musk's jet is now going to court. Earlier today, the @ElonJet handle was suspended, with Twitter reportedly accusing it of spam and manipulation. The account, run by a student named Jack Sweeney, briefly returned but was again suspended hours later after Twitter announced a new policy related to doxing and the sharing of live location information. Elon Musk is now threatening "legal action" against Sweeney.
Sweeney created the @ElonJet account two years ago, and later made similar accounts that tracked the private jets of Jeff Bezos, Bill Gates, and Drake among other notable personalities. He runs about two dozen tracker accounts that also follow the movements of NASA aircraft and weather monitoring hardware. Once a self-professed Musk fan, Sweeney had his first encounter with the billionaire when Musk asked him to abandon the @ElonJet account in exchange for $5,000.
The college student tried to re-negotiate with Musk, but the billionaire reportedly rejected his proposals and blocked him. All of this transpired before Musk acquired Twitter. Fast forward a few months, and the billionaire has announced an anti-doxing policy that prohibits users from posting the live location of another individual over personal safety risks. This updated policy got @ElonJet suspended a second time — though, for some reason, Sweeney's personal account was also suspended. Now it seems that the disciplinary action against Sweeney's Twitter accounts was not enough for Musk.
There are questions, but the fight won't stop
Musk tweeted on December 14 that "legal action is being taken against Sweeney & organizations who supported harm to my family." The Twitter owner claimed that a "crazy stalker" jumped on the hood of rapper Lil X's car in Los Angeles, reportedly thinking it was Musk's vehicle. The artist is yet to confirm whether the incident Musk is talking about really happened.
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 hasn't said anything about the incident or the lawsuit at the time of writing. However, multiple questions about Musk's claim have been raised. For example, how did the stalker get information on what they believed was Musk's car when the @ElonJet bot only tracks flight movements using publicly-available information? Moreover, internet users have already started sharing alternate ways to track Musk's private jet on Reddit and other social media websites.
As far as Sweeney goes, he told BuzzFeed News on Wednesday that he plans to fight and says he will continue his tracking work on other platforms like Facebook and Instagram. However, Twitter won't allow users to share those other trackers on its platform and is instead censoring attempts to tweet links to alternatives. This isn't the first legal tussle for Musk since he took over as Twitter's CEO. Employees that were fired a few weeks ago are taking the company to court. As well, Musk himself has threatened legal action against employees who leak internal company information to journalists.