Jack Sweeney, the Florida college student who gained nationwide attention for creating a real-time Twitter account that tracked Elon Musk’s jet, has now migrated to Mark Zuckerberg’s new social media platform, Threads, which aims to rival Twitter. Sweeney’s Twitter account was suspended last year, prompting his move to Threads.
Sweeney announced his arrival on Threads with his first post on July 6, exclaiming, “ElonJet has arrived to Threads!” The account, named @elonmusksjet, already boasts a following of 70,000 as of the latest report.
To track Elon Musk’s jet, Sweeney relies on publicly available data from the flight-tracking platform ADS-B Exchange. Additionally, thanks to Sweeney, there is also an account on Threads dedicated to tracking Zuckerberg’s jet.
In December 2022, Musk, who owns Twitter, suspended Sweeney’s account that tracked his jet. Musk even offered Sweeney $5,000 to remove the account, but Sweeney declined the offer.
Interestingly, while Musk and Zuckerberg now have Threads accounts to monitor their travels, one prominent figure who has yet to join the platform is Florida Governor Ron DeSantis.
Back in May 2023, Sweeney created a Twitter account, @DeSantisJet, to keep tabs on the government-owned jet used by DeSantis. Sweeney established the account amid speculation surrounding DeSantis potentially announcing his candidacy for the 2024 Republican Presidential nomination.
Sweeney mentioned to WFLA News Channel 8, “Well, you know Ron DeSantis is becoming more and more of a public figure in that he might run for the White House.”
Just a few days after Sweeney launched the account, DeSantis officially declared his intention to run in the 2024 election during a Twitter Spaces discussion with Musk. Currently, the @DeSantisJet Twitter account boasts nearly 22,000 followers.
It remains uncertain whether a Threads account will be created to track DeSantis’ jet. As of now, it appears that DeSantis has not even signed up for the rival app.
With numerous Twitter users flocking away from the platform following Musk’s influence, Zuckerberg seized the opportunity and created Threads, a social media platform owned by Meta, which poses a significant threat to Twitter. Within a mere seven hours of its launch, Threads garnered 10 million sign-ups, as confirmed by Zuckerberg. As of Sunday, over 70 million users have created an account on Threads.
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