FILE - Florida Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis arrives at the Foreign Office to visit Britain's Foreign Secretary in London, April 28, 2023. On Friday, May 5, 2023, more than four years later, DeSantis is set to conclude a legislative session that establishes him as perhaps the most accomplished conservative governor in the nation's bitter culture wars just as he prepares to enter the 2024 presidential contest as a top rival to former President Donald Trump. (AP Photo/Alberto Pezzali, File)
Credit: ASSOCIATED PRESS
(AP Photo/Alberto Pezzali, File)
SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — Jack Sweeney, the 20-year-old college student who was once banned from Twitter for posting the real-time movements of Elon Musk’s jet, has a new aircraft in his sights: that of Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis.
On Monday, Sweeney launched a new Twitter tracker using the name @DeSantisJet that follows the movements of the official Florida jet DeSantis uses for state business. This tracker, like the one he created to follow Musk’s private jet, uses public flight information required by aviation authorities.
In an interview with The Associated Press, Sweeney said he also plans to track DeSantis flights on other private aircraft once he can identify them.
Like Sweeney’s revamped version of his Musk tracker @elonjet, the DeSantis Twitter tracker reports movements with a 24-hour delay. That delay complies with a Twitter rule change imposed shortly after the company suspended Sweeney’s original Musk tracking account in December. Sweeney’s Twitter account was later restored.
Sweeney, who is a student at the University of Central Florida, tracks a variety of other private jets used by politicians, technology tycoons and celebrities, a list that includes former President Donald Trump; business titans Jeff Bezos, Bill Gates and Mark Zuckerberg; and celebrities Taylor Swift and Kim Kardashian.
Like other tracking accounts, Sweeney’s DeSantis tracker appears on a variety of social platforms ranging from Facebook and Instagram to smaller sites such as Telegram, Mastodon, and Nostr. His Musk tracker also uses accounts on BlueSky, a nascent Twitter alternative, and Truth, a Trump-founded social network.
Sweeney said DeSantis is “just becoming someone that people want to know about.” The Florida Republican has long given signs of gearing up to run for president in the 2024 election, where he would contend with Trump and several other announced candidates.
The AP reported Tuesday that DeSantis plans to kick off his presidential campaign in a Twitter Spaces chat with Musk on Wednesday, citing two people with knowledge of the decision.
Elon Musk offered a Florida teen $5,000 to delete a Twitter account tracking his jet. It wasn’t enough
