Twitter suspends account tracking Elon Musk's jet despite his 'commitment to free speech'

14 December 2022, 16:46 | Updated: 14 December 2022, 17:14

Twitter has suspended an account that tracked the movements of the private jet of the social media platform's owner Elon Musk.

The @ElonJet account, run by Florida college student Jack Sweeney, had more than half a million followers and used publicly available flight data before it was pulled on Wednesday morning.

It comes despite a tweet by Mr Musk last month, saying: "My commitment to free speech extends even to not banning the account following my plane, even though that is a direct personal safety risk."

When the Tesla and SpaceX CEO completed his takeover of Twitter in late October, he touted himself as a champion of free speech who would put a stop to censorship on the platform and a perceived left-wing bias.

After he gave assurances that he wouldn't suspend @ElonJet, Mr Sweeney replied, thanking the billionaire and explaining that most of the page's followers are supporters of the entrepreneur.

Read more: Elon Musk blasts Donald Trump's call for 'termination' of US constitution days after unbanning him on Twitter

But since then the mood appeared to have changed, with the account's 20-year-old creator claiming he was being "shadow banned" before the full-blown suspension.

He claimed an anonymous Twitter employee told him the account's visibility had been limited to a "severe degree", starting from December 2.

Mr Sweeny then posted a screenshot allegedly showing Ella Irwin, Twitter's vice president of trust and safety, asking employees to "apply heavy VF [visibility filtering] to @elonjet immediately".

After making noise about the restrictions on Twitter, the aviation enthusiast and Tesla fan posted on Monday: "It appears @ElonJet is longer banned or hidden in anyway. I think Twitter noticed my tweets and back tracked. Guilty in my book."

Read more: Female Twitter employees sue company saying they disproportionately targeted women in mass sackings of staff

Read more: Elon Musk briefly overthrown as richest person in the world after buying Twitter

But Twitter appeared to have a change of heart again, as the account is no longer visible and comes up with an "account suspended" message.

Mr Sweeney, who uses publicly available transponder data, said he was making backup plans to make sure the bot stayed active even if it was removed from Twitter.

The student, who also runs accounts tracking the planes of Bill Gates, Donald Trump and Mark Zuckerberg, told CNBC that Mr Musk had previously offered him $5,000 to take down the account due to a "safety risk".

"Eventually, the last message from him was 'It doesn't feel right to take this down,'" he added.