The Controversial Student, Jack Sweeney, who upsets Taylor Swift and Elon Musk with his planespotting passion

A university student from Florida named Jack Sweeney has gained attention for his habit of tracking and sharing the locations of private planes belonging to wealthy and powerful individuals. Despite potential legal repercussions, Sweeney believes that transparency should extend to everyone, including celebrities like Taylor Swift. He argues that the public has a right to know where these planes are headed and how frequently they are used. Sweeney grew up with a keen interest in aviation and technology, particularly in Elon Musk's companies, SpaceX and Tesla. This passion led him to develop a website called TheAirTraffic.com and social media accounts dedicated to tracking the aircraft of celebrities, politicians, tycoons, and Russian oligarchs. By utilizing publicly available data collected by amateur enthusiasts, Sweeney's system is able to detect signals emitted by planes in the sky, providing information about their locations. Sweeney's work aligns with the ethos of the Osint (open-source intelligence) community, which seeks to uncover valuable information by analyzing freely available data online. Initially a hobby driven by curiosity, Sweeney gradually realized the importance of transparency and public access to information. Additionally, he sees an environmental angle to his work, as tracking the emissions from private planes sheds light on the carbon footprints of the wealthy individuals who own them. However, sharing the locations of private planes has raised concerns about privacy and safety. Taylor Swift's lawyers argue that revealing the whereabouts of her private jet exposes her to the risk of stalkers. In response, Sweeney maintains that there is a legitimate public interest in knowing the location of the pop star's plane, as demonstrated by the popularity of tracking accounts dedicated to Swift among her fans. While Sweeney's data has been used to highlight the carbon emissions associated with Swift's tours, it also poses privacy risks. Ms. Swift's representatives argue that the information disclosed by Sweeney's tracking accounts provides precise times and locations of her movements, potentially compromising her safety. Sweeney suggests that if privacy is Swift's primary concern, she could register her private jet through an anonymous corporate entity and choose a different identification code. Sweeney has faced backlash from the rich and famous in the past. Elon Musk initially pledged not to take action against Sweeney's tracking account dedicated to him on Twitter (now X). However, Musk later banned the account, arguing that it led to a stalker finding him. The incident turned out to be unrelated to Sweeney's account, and he now operates a jet tracking account for Musk with a 24-hour delay to comply with site rules. Sweeney also tracks the planes of other prominent figures such as Kim Kardashian, Jeff Bezos, Bill Gates, Mark Zuckerberg, and Donald Trump. He expresses frustration with the inconsistent application of social media rules, as Meta suspended his Facebook and Instagram accounts dedicated to tracking Swift's plane while leaving up other tracking accounts, including those focused on Zuckerberg's aircraft. Despite mixed reactions to his work, Sweeney continues his mission to provide public access to information about private planes. The plane-spotting community on Discord supports his efforts and defends their shared enthusiasm for the hobby.