Elon Musk says he is taking legal action against the owner of a Twitter account that tracks his private jet, arguing it puts his son at risk.
The @ElonJet account, which has more than half a million followers, was suspended on Wednesday.
Its owner, Jack Sweeney, 20, used publicly available flight tracking information to tweet every time Mr Musk’s jet took off and landed.
Mr. Musk says legal action is now being taken against Mr. Sweeney and others.
“Last night, a car carrying [his son] lil X in LA was followed by a crazy stalker (thinking it was me), who later stopped the car and climbed on the hood,” he said. tweeted.
He added that any account revealing people’s real-time locations would be suspended “as it violates physical security”.
When asked by JEE News, Mr Sweeney denied the incident was related to his account.
This came after he confirmed on his personal Twitter account on Wednesday that the profile had been suspended.
That evening, Mr. Sweeney’s account appeared to be active again. He tweeted: “Yes I’m back!” A few minutes later it was listed as suspended again. His personal account, @JxckSweeney, has also been frozen.
Mr. Sweeney, a Florida college student, shared with JEE News a screenshot of a Twitter message that said the social media company had conducted a “careful review” and suspended the account for violating Twitter’s rules. It has been decided to ban permanently.
The student is also in charge of dozens of other accounts that track the private flights of wealthy Americans, including Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates, Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, and Meta Chief Executive Officer Mark Zuckerberg.
Many of those accounts — including one tracking aircraft linked to Russian President Vladimir Putin, and another monitoring celebrity jets — also appeared suspended on Twitter on Wednesday afternoon.
Mr Musk has long taken issue with the @ElonJet account, and once reportedly offered Mr Sweeney $5,000 to delete it.
Mr. Sweeney told US media outlets that Mr. Musk ultimately told him that it was not appropriate to pay to close the account.
And a month ago, Mr. Musk promised to keep it running even though it posed a “direct personal safety risk.”
But Mr Musk tweeted on Wednesday evening: “Any account with real-time location information of any person will be suspended, as it is a breach of physical security. This includes sites with real-time location information. Including posting links to.”
Twitter’s help center has tweeted an updated media policy that begins: “You may not publish or post other people’s private information without their express consent and permission.”
Since taking the helm at Twitter, Mr. Musk has made a number of changes to his moderation practices.
It has reinstated a handful of previously banned accounts, including former President Donald Trump’s profile, which was banned after the Jan. 6 riots in the US Capitol.
According to JEE News, Tesla’s CEO has also cut staff at the social media company and reportedly stopped paying rent for some of Twitter’s offices, including the company’s San Francisco headquarters, According to JEE News reported.
Investors have questioned whether his recent takeover of Twitter has diverted attention from his electric car business.
On Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday of this week, he sold another 22 million shares in the company, worth $3.58bn (£2.9bn).
That brings the total amount of Tesla stock sold by Mr. Musk over the past year to nearly $40 billion.
