Sweeney confirmed that his jet-tracking accounts were shut down. This marks yet another instance of Sweeney facing resistance over his jet-tracking activities.
Meta released a statement explaining its decision: “Given the risk of physical harm to individuals, and in keeping with the independent Oversight Board’s recommendation, we’ve disabled these accounts for violating our privacy policy.”
High-profile individuals, such as Taylor Swift, Bill Gates, and Zuckerberg, have had their flights tracked, raising concerns about personal safety. Sweeney’s accounts that followed other celebrities including Kim Kardashian, Kylie Jenner, Governor Ron DeSantis and Jeff Bezos were also deleted.
Battling Musk on X
In January 2022, before Elon Musk purchased Twitter, he offered Sweeney $5,000 to delete his account that tracked Musk’s private jet.
Sweeney countered by asking for $50,000 and a Tesla, but Musk declined.
By late 2022, Musk suspended Sweeney’s @ElonJet account, which had over 530,000 followers. Sweeney created a new account under the handle @ElonJetNextDay, posting Musk’s flights with a one-day delay, in line with X’s updated rules on publicly available information.
