Joe Rogan gave his take this week on Twitter CEO Elon Musk’s recent controversial decision to permanently suspend an account created by college student Jack Sweeney that tracked the movements of the billionaire’s private jet.
Earlier this month, Twitter had suspended accounts belonging to Sweeney, including the @ElonJet account, after Musk expressed concerns about potential safety risks.
Rogan addressed the situation during a conversation with comedian Brian Simpson on the Dec. 28 episode of his podcast, “The Joe Rogan Experience” — at one point referring to the Sweeney’s banned account as “definitely weird” and never “a pleasant thing to do.”
Simpson described Sweeney’s banned tracking account as “a bit of creepy.”
“What’s the point? He said he began to do it because he was a fan of Elon’s,” Rogan replied.
As The Post has reported, Musk originally sent Sweeney a Twitter direct message offering $5,000 last 12 months to delete the @ElonJet account. Sweeney counter-offered by asking for $50,000, but Musk expressed reservations and eventually stopped replying to his messages.
The account used publicly available data to trace the movements of Musk’s private jet.
“Elon, you gotta make a suggestion they’ll’t refuse,” Simpson said regarding the failed negotiation.
“Here’s the issue: how does this prevent other people from doing the very same thing and doing the identical thing and attempting to get extra money?” Rogan replied. “Where does it end? Like if that’s an industry now, tracking Elon’s jet?”
Simpson said he felt it was a “mistake” for Sweeney to release the main points of Musk’s original offer.
“That’s also why I feel it was a mistake to go public with it. Since the DMs weren’t public until he made them public, until the guy running the account made it public,” Simpson said.
“But is it a mistake for him since it’s getting him loads of attention. Individuals are taking note of it. He might find a way to monetize it. It’s weird though. It’s definitely weird and I’d not prefer it in any respect. I don’t think it’s a pleasant thing to do,” Rogan said.
Musk said Twitter would ban “any account doxxing real-time location info” going forward. He has also threatened Sweeney with legal motion over the account.
Meanwhile, Sweeney fired back in an exclusive interview with The Post, blasting Musk as a “full-on hypocrite” for banning the jet tracker account despite his public commitment to free speech.
Days after his original account was banned, Sweeney returned to Twitter with an account called @ElonJetNextDay, which tracks Musk’s private jet but publishes the knowledge with a 24-hour delay. The account has already garnered greater than 20,000 followers.
