Jack Sweeney, the enterprising teen who asked Elon Musk to pay him $50,000 to take down his popular “ElonJet” Twitter handle — which tracked Musk’s private jet for all to see — took to the microblogging platform Monday to say that his account had been seemingly fixed after releasing his own version of the “Twitter Files” Sunday.
What Happened: Sweeney, on his personal Twitter account, said that while his @ElonJet handle still existed, it had been shadow banned. Using Musk’s “Twitter Files” moniker, he alluded to a deeper conspiracy behind the reasoning for his shadow ban.
“Internal messages obtained by an anonymous Twitter employee explained to me that on 'Dec 2 2022 your account @elonjet was visibility limited/restricted to a severe degree internally,'” the 19-year-old said in his version of the Twitter Files.
He added screenshots of what seemed to be a message from Ella Irwin, vice president of Twitter Trust and Saftey, to a Twitter employee, which asked them to apply visibility filtering to the @ElonJet handle immediately.
Though, it seems the shadow ban didn’t last long — leading Sweeney to say that his public calls about his tracker caused the social media platform to backtrack.
It appears @ElonJet is longer banned or hidden in anyway. I think Twitter noticed my tweets and back tracked. Guilty in my book. pic.twitter.com/MRxVbPaXxS
— Jack Sweeney (@JxckSweeney) December 12, 2022
It appears @ElonJet is longer banned or hidden in anyway. I think Twitter noticed my tweets and back tracked. Guilty in my book. pic.twitter.com/MRxVbPaXxS
— Jack Sweeney (@JxckSweeney) December 12, 2022
Why It Matters: Sweeney, who had been offered $5,000 by Musk earlier in January to delete the account, counteroffered and asked Musk for $50,000. While the richest man in the world didn’t accept the deal, Musk said he’d think about it.
What Sweeney would take from Musk to permanently delete the account? The sleuth offered an update in August, saying he would take the tracking page down if Musk invited him for a flight on the jet and allowed him to film/record the session — he also added the caveat of still wanting the $50,000 payment.
See Also: Elon Musk Lets Loose Another Batch Of Twitter Files That Point To Existence Of 'Secret Blacklists'
Photo: Courtesy of Thomas Hawk on Flickr
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