The Guy Tracking Elon Musk's Jet Says He Was Banned Without Warning & He Didn't Help A 'Stalker'
He didn't get his $50,000 or a Tesla.
Elon Musk went back on his word to leave the popular @ElonJet Twitter account up, and now the guy who runs the account, Jack Sweeney, is calling out the billionaire's excuse for banning him.
Sweeney's the mastermind behind the Twitter accounts that started tracking and posting celebrity jet activity, including Musk's jet, using publicly available data. The two got into it before Musk bought Twitter, and Sweeney asked Musk for $50,000 "or a Tesla" in exchange for taking the account down.
Then Musk bought Twitter. He initially said he was such a fan of "free speech" that he wouldn't ban Sweeney, but that changed last week when Musk claimed, without evidence, that Sweeney's bot helped a "stalker" find his kid's car.
Sweeney told Narcity this week that there's no way his account could have pointed someone to the billionaire's son, despite Musk's claims that he was "doxxed."
"He didn't give me a warning. He just changed the rules, and he jumped right to it to make the conclusion that that event had been connected to my account that he talked about on Twitter," Sweeney told Narcity during his interview.
On December 15, Musk tweeted that the "car carrying lil X in LA was followed by a crazy stalker (thinking it was me), who later blocked car from moving & climbed onto hood."
The event led to Musk's decision to ban Sweeney's account and make a new rule that Twitter users can't share people's real-time locations. Musk also said that "legal action is being taken against Sweeney & organizations who supported harm to my family."
Sweeney says the LAPD got involved in the situation but he's not facing any charges. He also said that the last update on his @ElonJet account went up more than a day before the alleged stalker incident.
"It wasn't anywhere near an airport," Sweeney said. "That event was not connected to me at all."
The LAPD has said that no crime reports were filed over the incident.
The guy in the car recently told the Washington Post that he's an Uber Eats driver and that he thought he was in contact with Grimes, the mother of Musk's son, who lives in that area of L.A.
As for the legal action, Sweeney says he hasn't heard from Musk's lawyers yet.
"Based off of a lot of his statements and the way he's running Twitter, I don't think there's anything to that statement, just like a lot of the statements he's made on Twitter," Sweeney said.
Sweeney also ripped the way Musk is running Twitter and accused him of "using statements to manipulate the platform and people."
"He was doing polls, and then he was like, invalidating those polls," Sweeney said. He pointed in particular to Musk's recent poll asking if he should step down as Twitter boss, which drew more than 17 million votes. About 57.5% of users said he should back away, but Musk responded by declaring that he will only let paid Twitter users vote in his future polls.
"Just like the one that said he would have banned me, you know, that's an invalid statement," Sweeney said.
"Another tweet he put out was 'even my worst critic should be allowed on Twitter,' or something like that, and then he banned all those journalists, some of whom didn't even post links to my account," Sweeney continued. "It's just like, many of the statements he's making are invalidated."
Sweeney told Narcity back in November that he was worried about Musk eventually taking his account down, although he predicted that "it would be all over the news" if Musk ever did so.
That's exactly what ended up happening, with Musk facing plenty of criticism for the move and later banning some journalists who reported on the story.
Sweeney says he wishes the whole thing had gone differently between himself and Musk. However, their story isn't over yet, because Sweeney is still tracking him on Instagram.