Following its suspension from Twitter last year, the creator of an account that tracked the private jet of the platform’s owner, Elon Musk, in real time has now migrated to new rival platform ‘Threads.’
Jack Sweeney, owner of the account named @elonmusksjet, first posted on the new Meta platform on July 6. The account already boasts over 80,000 followers.
“ElonJet has arrived to Threads!” reads Mr. Sweeney’s first post on the platform.
Mr. Sweeney, a college student from Florida, posts real time information about Mr. Musk’s jet arrival and departure co-ordinates. Mr. Musk’s private jet was tracked using publicly available data.
Mr. Sweeney also owns similar accounts on other social media platforms, including Bluesky and Instagram. Twitter suspended the ElonJet account at the end of last year. The suspension was followed by threats of legal action against the account’s operator, after Mr. Musk said his son was followed by a “crazy stalker.”
A direct challenge to Twitter, Threads has garnered tens of millions of new sign-ups since it launched earlier this month. Among new users are celebrities and prominent figures such as Kim Kardashian, Jennifer Lopez, and Democratic U.S. Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.
The platform is set to exploit Twitter’s current weak performance, which is attributed to a flurry of controversial decisions by Mr. Musk, including backtracking on his original pledge to make Twitter a free speech platform.
After purchasing Twitter last year for $44 billion, Mr. Musk said that accounts posting real-time locations would be suspended for posing “physical safety violations.” Locations posted in relation to delays, however, could remain.
This prompted Mr. Sweeney to return to Twitter under a new account, “ElonJet But Delayed,” which effectively does not transmit real-time locations but posts information on Mr. Musk’s plane on a 24-hour delay.
Threads, which is an offshoot of Instagram, allows its users to post text as opposed to pictures and videos. Shortly after its launch on July 5, Twitter threatened Threads with legal action over “systematic, willful, and unlawful misappropriation of Twitter’s trade secrets and other intellectual property,” according to a letter first reported on by Semafor.
The allegations were subsequently dismissed by Meta officials. The company said that no one who works for the platform had been previously employed by Twitter.
Sweeney’s account doesn’t just post updates about Elon Musk’s private jet. His endeavors also include updates on planes used by other prominent figures, such as Mr. Zuckerberg, former President Donald Trump, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, billionaire Jeff Bezos, Ms. Kardashian, and singer Taylor Swift.
Reuters contributed to this article
