The operator of a fake “bot” account on Twitter said that the social media platform has suspended its account that tracks the plane belonging to Elon Musk, the owner of Twitter.
The account tracks the movements of Musk’s private jet using data in the public domain and issues alerts, reports a local Arabic daily quoting Reuters.
Musk said in a tweet in November that his commitment to freedom of expression “extends even to not blocking the account that tracks my plane, even though it poses an immediate risk to personal safety.”
The account’s operator, Jack Sweeney, a 20-year-old student at the University of Central Florida, wrote on Twitter on Saturday that Ella Irwin, Twitter’s vice president of trust and safety, had requested that the account be cleared and made less visible to users.
Sweeney and Twitter did not immediately respond to Reuters requests for comment. Sweeney said, in media interviews, that he turned down an offer of $5,000 from the Tesla CEO in 2021 to close his dummy “robot account”.
Sweeney also runs similar fake accounts tracking Musk’s plane on other platforms, Facebook and Instagram owned by Meta Platforms, and Telegram.