The new boss of the social network will not delete the ElonJet account, which tracks the movements of his private jet. However, he had offered $5,000 to his owner to close it in January.
Jack Sweeney did not expect such a decision. The creator of the ElonJet account, which tracks the routes of Elon Musk’s private jet, thought his automated bot was not going to survive the arrival of the billionaire at the controls of Twitter. But Elon Musk assured that he does not plan to delete it.
“My commitment to free speech goes so far as not to ban the account that follows my plane, even if it poses a direct risk to my personal safety,” Elon Musk wrote on Twitter.
A first attempt to close in January
The 20-year-old student uses public air traffic data to track the flights of Elon Musk’s private plane. He thanked the new boss of the platform for not putting an end to his tracing, assuring that “the vast majority of people who follow [ce] account are supporters and admirers of Elon Musk’s projects.
But this decision was by no means certain. In January, Elon Musk – who was not yet planning to buy Twitter – had contacted Jack Sweeney to conclude an arrangement. The billionaire had offered 5000 dollars to the young man so that he closes his account, in order to reduce the risks for his safety.
The student then told Business Insider that “5000 dollars were not enough” for the work that setting up this account had required of him. Above all, this sum of money was too small to replace “the pleasure [qu’il a] to work on this project”. He had even tried to raise the auction to 50,000 dollars, without success, as Konbini said.
When Elon Musk became the owner of Twitter, Jack Sweeney believed that the transaction would spell the end of his activities. He was worried about it through a survey to find out if the ElonJet account was going to be banned. 58.6% of voters predicted account deletion. Wrongly.
This summer, a similar account had gained momentum. It made it possible to follow the movements of Bernard Arnault’s private plane. But since then, the boss of LVMH has preferred to sell his private jet and opt for rentals in order to travel anonymously.