Twitter CEO Elon Musk revealed Sunday evening that he has no plans to droop an account devoted to monitoring the actions of his non-public jet – regardless of describing it as a safety menace on a number of events.
Musk has pledged to re-emphasize free speech rules at Twitter after shopping for the corporate for $44 billion. The billionaire said that he views the account – created by faculty pupil Jack Sweeney – as a part of that pledge.
“My dedication to free speech extends even to not banning the account following my airplane, regardless that that could be a direct private security threat,” Musk tweeted.
The Publish has reached out to Sweeney for remark.
The @ElonJet Twitter account has amassed almost 500,000 followers. Sweeney, a pupil on the College of Central Florida, created a bot that makes use of publicly obtainable flight knowledge to trace Musk’s non-public jet because it relocates to completely different airports.
“Thanks backing your dedication to free speech. Overwhelmingly the followers of my account are supporters and admirers of your endeavors. Which was my (@JxckSweeney) motivation for creating @ElonJet,” Sweeney tweeted in response to Musk.
As The Publish reported, Musk contacted Sweeney final 12 months by means of Twitter direct messages and provided him $5,000 to delete the account. The billionaire described the account as a “safety threat” that might put his life in jeopardy.
“I don’t love the concept of being shot by a nutcase,” Musk stated on the time.
Sweeney made a counter-offer of $50,000. Musk stated he would think about the supply, however later stated it didn’t “really feel proper” and stopped responding to his messages.
Sweeney parlayed the change into different alternatives, together with a job supply and merchandise gross sales. He additionally operates comparable accounts monitoring different notable figures, from Invoice Gates and different billionaires to Russian oligarchs.
The jet-tracking account has additionally brought on different complications for Musk. In August, the Twitter boss confronted a public backlash after the account confirmed his non-public jet had accomplished a nine-minute flight from San Jose to San Francisco.
In a current column for Newsweek, Sweeney stated he hasn’t had any interplay with Musk since he purchased Twitter – and plans to proceed working his account as regular.
“I’m not apprehensive now that Musk owns Twitter. If he banned ElonJet, the information can be throughout it, so I don’t assume he'll do it. That being stated, there’s all the time an opportunity. I put out a ballot not too long ago, and a few of my followers assume my account will likely be banned,” Sweeney wrote.
“I’m not going to cease,” Sweeney added.
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