Jack Dorsey, Twitter’s co-founder and former CEO, recently expressed his support of college student Jack Sweeney’s account tracking Elon Musk’s private jet. Although the teen’s account has been banned by “free speech absolutist” Musk, Dorsey has encouraged the student to continue posting updates on rival platforms Bluesky and Nostr.
Business Insider reports that the account teenager Jack Sweeney created to track Elon Musk’s private jet has received public support from Jack Dorsey, co-founder of Twitter, who also urged the college student to keep updating his posts on rival platforms Bluesky and Nostr.
Dorsey recently engaged in a discussion on Bluesky in which he expressed his explicit support for Jack Sweeney, the college student behind the infamous @ElonJet account. The account was initially created on Twitter, but it was shut down in December after Elon Musk took control of the service. Dorsey urged Sweeney to continue posting on the competing apps Nostr and Bluesky, both of which have received funding from Dorsey.
In response to a question regarding his position regarding the @ElonJet account, Dorsey said, “Keep on keepin’ on,” and added, “Send updates here and to nostr.”
Over 60,000 people use the invite-only Bluesky app, which is similar to Twitter. Notable users include Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) and the Twitter comedy account Dril. The app was initially created at Twitter while Dorsey served as CEO; it was later spun off and is currently run by Jay Graber.
Sweeney told Insider that he joined Bluesky on April 30 and created his personal and @ElonJet accounts because “It has that enticing feeling like Twitter.”
Sweeney also joined Nostr, an open protocol social network designed to build a censorship-resistant global platform, on the recommendation of Dorsey. In December, Dorsey revealed that he had given @fiatjaf, the Nostr founder who prefers to remain anonymous, more than $250,000 in Bitcoin.
Dorsey’s remarks reveal a change in his attitude toward Musk, whom he had backed throughout the acquisition of Twitter in 2022. Dorsey even called Musk the “singular solution I trust” for the future of Twitter. However, Dorsey now thinks the billionaire shouldn’t have made the deal in light of the widespread firings and site reliability issues. Although Dorsey hasn’t tweeted since January, he’s still active on Nostr and Bluesky.
Dorsey’s opinions on Twitter can be taken with a grain of salt. A free speech failure as Twitter CEO, Dorsey explained that censoring President Donald Trump was a “business decision.”
During an interview, Musk said that he had spoken to Dorsey about permanent bans on Twitter. Musk stated: “He and I are of the same mind that permanent bans should be extremely rare and really reserved for accounts that are bots or spam scam accounts.”
Dorsey then confirmed that he agreed with Musk, stating in a tweet: “There are exceptions (CSE [child sexual exploitation], illegal behavior, spam or network manipulation, etc), but generally permanent bans are a failure of ours and don’t work.”
Axios reporter Dan Primack questioned Dorsey who had previously said that banning Trump was “the right thing” to do. Dorsey clarified that the decision was a “business decision, it shouldn’t have been.”
Sweeney started the first @ElonJet account in 2020 to track the whereabouts of Musk’s private plane using open flight data. Musk famously offered Sweeney $5,000 to delete the account in January 2022, citing security concerns. Sweeney responded with a $50,000 demand, but no deal was made.
Sweeney created accounts on several websites after his celebrity jet-tracking accounts were shut down in December, including Instagram, Discord, and Mastodon. Sweeney prefers Twitter and Bluesky over Mastodon, though.
Read more at Business Insider here.
Lucas Nolan is a reporter for Breitbart News covering issues of free speech and online censorship. Follow him on Twitter @LucasNolan