Jack Sweeney — the college kid whose Twitter account that had tracked Elon Musk’s private jet was suspended this week — said he’s not sweating the tech mogul’s threat to sue him — at least for now.
The 19-year-old freshman said that he’s been “talking to a few people” about a potential lawsuit that would be filed by the world’s second richest human, whose net worth is valued by Forbes at $175.6 billion.
In the meantime, Sweeney said he’ll be on the lookout for any letters in the mail.
“I do think it’s a bluff, but we’ll have to see,” Sweeney told The Post when reached at his home on Thursday morning. “It’s hard to say.”
“We’ll have to see if I get an official notice from anything,” Sweeney told The Post.
Sweeney — who blasted Musk as a “full-on hypocrite” in an interview with The Post just hours after his @Elonjet account was suspended — said he was still processing a recent tweet by the new Twitter owner who threatened legal action against the college freshman.
Musk took to Twitter late on Wednesday and posted a tweet thread alleging that someone driving a car bearing California license plates was tailing the vehicle carrying his young son.
“Last night, car carrying lil X in LA was followed by crazy stalker (thinking it was me), who later blocked car from moving & climbed onto hood,” Musk tweeted.
Musk then appeared to imply that Sweeney’s flight-tracking Twitter handle may have been to blame, tweeting: “Legal action is being taken against Sweeney & organizations who supported harm to my family.”
In his interview with The Post on Thursday, Sweeney scoffed at the notion that his flight-tracking account could have been used to stalk Musk or his family.
“That’s a car [and not a plane,” Sweeney said. “And that supposed incident would have been 24 hours after the last tweet from my account, which is a big time difference.”
“That’s trying to link something that’s just crazy.”
Sweeney told The Post on Thursday that he thinks Musk may have been retaliating against him for tweeting a screenshot of an internal Slack message that the teen says he obtained from a Twitter employee.
“It’s all a weird sequence of events a week after I released leaked Twitter messages about my account being shadowbanned,” Sweeney said on Thursday.
When asked if he thought Musk was seeking revenge on Sweeney for publicizing the leak, Sweeney told The Post: “To me, it’s weird timing.”
“I don’t know if it’s true or not, but it’s really strange to me,” he said. “We already know that Elon was mad about people sharing leaked messages already and he wanted the employees to sign something that they wouldn’t leak stuff.”
In his Twitter thread late Wednesday, Musk posted a short video clip showing the driver of the car that allegedly tailed his son.
The video shows a man dressed in all black wearing a hooded sweatshirt. The driver’s face is covered by a mask.
“Anyone recognize this person or car?” Musk tweeted.
Los Angeles police told The Post they do not have information on the incident.
Sweeney told The Post that his @Elonjet handle only posts a tweet after a plane has taken off.
“I don’t notify ahead of time before takeoff,” he said.
Twitter, which Musk acquired more than a month ago for $44 billion, also banned Sweeney’s other flight-tracking accounts that monitored the private jets of Mark Zuckerberg, Jeff Bezos, Bill Gates, and assorted Russian oligarchs.
Sweeney said he was surprised to see that Twitter also banned his own personal account.
Earlier this week, tech journalist Zoë Schiffer of Platformer reported that she obtained a leaked email that Musk sent to Twitter staffers warning of legal action if they reveal confidential information to the press.
“As evidenced by the many detailed leaks of confidential Twitter information, a few people at our company continue to act in a manner contrary to the company’s interests and in violation of their NDA,” the Musk email said.
“This will be said only once: If you clearly and deliberately violate the NDA that you signed when you joined, you accept liability to the full extent of the law & Twitter will immediately seek damages.”
[Written in collaboration with other media outlets with information from the following sources]
