The owner of the Twitter account that tracks Elon Musk's private jet activities claims it has been shadowbanned on the social media platform.
When shadowbanned, the profile and posts of an account become more difficult to find on the platform.
On Sunday, Jack Sweeney, the person managing @ElonJet, tweeted about the allegations that the account was shadowbanned.
According to Gizmodo, the claim from @ElonJet's owner comes despite Musk's recent public assurances that he will not be taking any action against the account.
Twitter Account was Given Limited Visibility to a Severe Degree
In a thread called "My Twitter Files," Sweeney said that an anonymous employee of the social media platform told him that his @ElonJet tracker bot was given limited visibility to a severe degree starting December 2.
Sweeney also posted a screenshot that allegedly shows Twitter's Vice President of Trust and Safety Ella Irwin asking team members to immediately implement heavy visibility filtering to @ElonJet.
Sweeney is a first-year student at the University of Central Florida in Orlando. He explained that he is using publicly available transponder data from Musk's private plane in order to track its location.
That data includes the plane's altitude, latitude, longitude, and heading. These are then fed into an algorithm he designed. The information is then taken by the @ElonJet bot, which posts tweets when the jet takes off and lands.
However, just hours after Sweeney published his thread and after media organizations reported on his claims, he published a new tweet saying that it seemed Twitter had lifted its restrictions on @ElonJet.
Sweeney wrote that it appears that @ElonJet is longer banned or hidden in any way. He added that Twitter seemed to notice his tweets and decided to backtrack.
Following this, he also published a screenshot from Twitter purporting to track the status of the alleged shadowbanned.
Meanwhile, since Twitter did not issue a statement to Gizmodo's request for comment, the news outlet was not able to independently confirm those tests.
Read Also: Apple Threatens To Withhold Twitter From The App Store, Elon Musk Claims
Elon Musk Offers Jack Sweeney $5,000 to Remove the @ElonJet Account
According to Sweeney, in January, Musk personally reached out to him over DMs requesting him to remove the @ElonJet bot in exchange for $5,000.
He made a counter-offer, telling the billionaire that he would consider deactivating the account for $50,000.
Sweeney also said that he would consider deactivating @ElonJet in return for an internship at one of Musk's companies.
According to Gizmodo, the Tesla CEO reportedly decided to cut off communication with Sweeney. The billionaire said he believes social media accounts that track his whereabouts are "security issues."
Meanwhile, the new Twitter owner made comments last month that he was keeping the @ElonJet account active on the platform despite having a "direct personal safety risk."
According to the billionaire, it was a sign of his commitment to free speech. He wrote that his commitment to free speech entails not banning the account that follows his jet plane.
According to a report by Teslarati, Sweeney is tracking other billionaires aside from Musk. In fact, he operates more than 30 plane-tracking accounts that post publicly available data.
Among the high-profile business personalities that he tracks are Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg, and Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates.
Related Article: Elon Musk Runs Twitter Poll To Decide On Reinstating Banned Accounts
