Twitter CEO Elon Musk has seemingly gone against his free speech ways, suspending a Twitter account that has been tracking his private jet.
On Wednesday, the creator of the account tweeted the news.
“Well it appears @ElonJet is suspended,” tweeted Florida college student Jack Sweeney.
Sweeney’s own account has also been suspended. Before this happened, he took a screenshot of a Twitter message he received.
“After careful review, we determined your account broke the Twitter Rules,” it read. “Your account is permanently in read-only mode, which means you can’t Tweet, Retweet, or Like content. You won’t be able to create new accounts.”
The 20-year-old said he created the account in June 2020 out of admiration for Musk and his work with Tesla and SpaceX. Sweeney has used data that is publicly available in order to track Musk’s private jet.
Musk tweeted the following a month ago, claiming he would not touch the account.
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
Despite this tweet, the account has been suspended for an undetermined period of time.
It was reported back in January, before Musk acquired Twitter, he sent direct messages to Sweeney offering him $5,000 to delete @ElonJet and keep “crazy people” from tracking his movements.
Sweeney refused and countered with an offer for $50,000. Sweeney said he would use the money to help him get through college and it “would possibly allow me to get a car maybe even a Model 3,” which is a Tesla.
In an interview with CNBC recently, Sweeney said Musk and himself seemed to have come to an agreement after their conversation in January.
“Eventually, the last message from him was ‘It doesn’t feel right to take this down,’” Sweeney said. This is why the suspension came as somewhat of a surprised to him.
This is not the only tracking account Sweeney has created. He has 15 other tracking accounts for others including Bill Gates and Jeff Bezos.
Sweeny’s Musk jet-tracking account is still active on Instagram as of now. Musk has not responded or commented on the situation.
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