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Hours after a Twitter account tracking Elon Musk’s jet was suspended from the platform, the account appeared to be back Wednesday evening.
The account, @ElonJet, had been suspended from the platform earlier on Wednesday, despite Musk’s assurance in November that he would not take action against it because of his commitment to free speech.
The personal account of Jack Sweeney, who runs @ElonJet, was also suspended later on Wednesday. Sweeney’s other billionaire jet-tracking accounts including @BezosJets, @GatesJets, and @RUOligarchJets also remained suspended.
Twitter user @Osinttechnical noted Wednesday that Twitter appears to have changed its private information policy on open-source flight-tracking.
The platform now prohibits users from sharing “live location information, including information shared on Twitter directly or links to 3rd-party URL(s) of travel routes... regardless if this information is publicly available.”
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Searches for @ElonJet did not yield any results on Twitter Wednesday, and the profile page shows a notice that the account has been suspended for violating Twitter’s rules. Sweeney told BuzzFeed News that @ElonJet had been permanently suspended from Twitter.
In November, Musk tweeted that his “commitment to free speech extends even to not banning the account following my plane, even though that is a direct personal safety risk.”
Flight trackers are public information, and Sweeney relied on available data.
Earlier this month, Sweeney claimed that the platform had been suppressing or shadow banning his account.
Semafor has reached out to both Twitter and Sweeney for comment.
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Sweeney’s account has long served as an irritation point for Musk. In January, the billionaire offered 20-year-old Sweeney $5,000 to take down the account. Sweeney rejected the offer and asked for $50,000.
