In January, Jack Sweeney rose to prominence after businessman Elon Musk blocked him from social media for refusing to accept $5,000 for shutting down the Twitter account that was tracking his private plane.
The young man from Florida who gained notoriety for tracking the movements of the American businessman’s private plane online Elon Musk created two new profiles on Twitter to follow the “jets” of the Russian leadership and millionaires in coincidence with the invasion of Ukraine.
The profiles @RUOligarchJets and @Putinjetwhich handles Jack Sweeney19 years old, already have a total of more than 330,000 followers.
According to Sweeney, the initiative came from the Twitter community itself, which asked him to do the same with these millionaires and with Putin as he did with Musk.
In a message on @PutinJet, the University of Central Florida student warns his followers not to expect much precision as there are “dozens” of planes at the disposal of the Russian president, Vladimir Putin, and other senior government officials. Also, the Automatic Dependent Surveillance System (ADS-B) does not work well in Russia.
RSD073 Landed near Moscow, Moscow Oblast, RU. Apx. flt. time 4 Hours : 37 Mins. pic.twitter.com/V3NkjmDQQL
— Russian VIP & Putin Jets (@PutinJet) March 3, 2022
Russian millionaires under the radar
Among the millionaires tracked down by Sweeney are Roman Abramovichowner of the English first division football club Chelsea, and Leonid Mikhelsonpresident of the gas producer Novatek.
In an interview with Bloomberg, the young man declared himself amazed by the number and size of the planes that the Russian “oligarchs” have. “It’s absolute madness”said.
Leonard Blavatnik’s Jet N600EB Took off near Newburgh, New York, US. Going to Liberia, Guanacaste, CR (LIR, Daniel Oduber Quiros International Airport) arriving in ~4h27m. pic.twitter.com/DDEySPAJtu
— Russian Oligarch Jets (@RUOligarchJets) March 3, 2022
Tracked millionaires use model airplanes like the Airbus A319 and the Boeing 737, which in commercial aviation are used for passenger transport. Solo de Abramovich tracks six private planes.
La lista de “oligarcas” rastreados incluye también a Alexander Avramov, Oleg Deripaska, Mihail Fridman, Viktor Medvedchuk, Leonard Blavatnik, Dmitry Ryboloviev, Arkady Rotenberg, Eugene Schvidler, Alexey Mordashov, Vladmir Lisin, Andrey Melnichenko, Suleiman Kerimo y Oleg Tinkov.
His story with Elon Musk
Last January, Elon Musk blocked Sweeney on social media for not accepting a job offer. $5,000 for closing the @ElonJet Twitter account from which he reports the movements of the plane of the owner of SpaceX and Tesla.
The young university student then told a Miami channel that he had been in contact with the powerful businessman since the end of November.
Musk asked him about the “bot” technology he uses to track his plane and told him it poses a security risk, so he offered him $5,000 to shut it down.
“I don’t like the idea of being shot by a wacko”Musk told him, according to the student in the interview.
To the offer of $5,000, Sweeney responded by asking for $50,000, the price of a Tesla Model 3 car, or the chance to be an intern at one of his companies.
Musk analyzed it for a month and one day in the second half of January the young man found that he had been blocked on the networks.
Sweeney also tracks millionaires’ planes Bill Gates and Jeff Bezosand that of the former president Donald Trumpaccording to the interview with the NBC channel.