Elon Musk jet tracker trolls Twitter owner by joining rival Threads

2023-07-06 23:56

The setbacks just keep coming for Twitter owner Elon Musk. After outages and daily view limits prompted users to flock to other platforms, and Mark Zuckerberg posted his first tweet in 11 years to savagely roast him, the individual behind the ‘Elon Jet’ account has set up a profile on rival app Threads. The text-based social network, run by Instagram, looks to build “an open, civil place for people to have conversations” and was released to the public on Thursday. As is to be expected, Musk isn’t exactly keen on Threads coming along and scooping up disgruntled Twitter users and has already criticised the app over the type of data it may collect from users. But if Zuckerberg isn’t enough of a headache for the businessman (the Tesla founder has challenged the Meta CEO to a cage fight), then a man who set up a Twitter account to track Musk’s private jet - in real-time, using publicly available data – setting up shop on Meta-managed Threads could well be. Jack Sweeney, who managed the account while studying at the University of Central Florida, soon angered Musk over the initiative, as he claimed the tweeting of public information was “becoming a security issue”. Unable to resist a dig at Musk on Threads, Sweeney created a Threads account on Thursday, with his second post (after the initial announcement) reading: “@Zuck will I be allowed to stay?” At the time of writing, @ElonMuskJet has more than 8,300 followers, and Zuckerberg is yet to comment. In January last year, Musk offered Sweeney $5,000 to take down the account, and when the then teenager got back to him asking for $50,000, the free speech “absolutist” went on to block him on Twitter. Sign up to our free Indy100 weekly newsletter Then, as talk continued to build of the tech mogul finally taking over the social media network, Sweeney tweeted in April that the move “doesn’t mean the end of ElonJet”, sharing links to the bot on other platforms such as Instagram, Facebook and Telegram. After buying Twitter in October – to the tune of $44bn – Musk took just two months to suspend the ‘ElonJet’ Twitter account, changing the platform’s rules to prohibit real-time location sharing. In a move which also saw several journalists temporarily banned, Musk tweeted in December: “Any account doxing 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. “Same doxxing rules apply to ‘journalists’ as to everyone else.” Sweeney’s account was reinstated on the same day it was banned, with Musk making clear that sharing locations “on a slightly delayed basis” is OK as it “isn’t a safety problem”. It was relaunched as ‘ElonJet but Delayed’, with a 24-hour delay affecting tweets, and remains active on the platform to this day. Have your say in our news democracy. Click the upvote icon at the top of the page to help raise this article through the indy100 rankings.

The text-based social network, run by Instagram, looks to build “an open, civil place for people to have conversations” and was released to the public on Thursday.

As is to be expected, Musk isn’t exactly keen on Threads coming along and scooping up disgruntled Twitter users and has already criticised the app over the type of data it may collect from users.

But if Zuckerberg isn’t enough of a headache for the businessman (the Tesla founder has challenged the Meta CEO to a cage fight), then a man who set up a Twitter account to track Musk’s private jet - in real-time, using publicly available data – setting up shop on Meta-managed Threads could well be.

Jack Sweeney, who managed the account while studying at the University of Central Florida, soon angered Musk over the initiative, as he claimed the tweeting of public information was “becoming a security issue”.

Unable to resist a dig at Musk on Threads, Sweeney created a Threads account on Thursday, with his second post (after the initial announcement) reading: “@Zuck will I be allowed to stay?”

At the time of writing, @ElonMuskJet has more than 8,300 followers, and Zuckerberg is yet to comment.

In January last year, Musk offered Sweeney $5,000 to take down the account, and when the then teenager got back to him asking for $50,000, the free speech “absolutist” went on to block him on Twitter.

Sign up to our free Indy100 weekly newsletter

Then, as talk continued to build of the tech mogul finally taking over the social media network, Sweeney tweeted in April that the move “doesn’t mean the end of ElonJet”, sharing links to the bot on other platforms such as Instagram, Facebook and Telegram.

After buying Twitter in October – to the tune of $44bn – Musk took just two months to suspend the ‘ElonJet’ Twitter account, changing the platform’s rules to prohibit real-time location sharing.

In a move which also saw several journalists temporarily banned, Musk tweeted in December: “Any account doxing 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.

“Same doxxing rules apply to ‘journalists’ as to everyone else.”

Sweeney’s account was reinstated on the same day it was banned, with Musk making clear that sharing locations “on a slightly delayed basis” is OK as it “isn’t a safety problem”.

It was relaunched as ‘ElonJet but Delayed’, with a 24-hour delay affecting tweets, and remains active on the platform to this day.

Have your say in our news democracy. Click the upvote icon at the top of the page to help raise this article through the indy100 rankings.