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Jack Sweeney

Jack Sweeney (born c. 2002) is an American programmer and entrepreneur specializing in , most notably for automating the tracking of private jet flights via publicly available Automatic Dependent Surveillance-Broadcast (ADS-B) signals mandated by the . Originating as high school programming experiments, his tools aggregate data from to map real-time or near-real-time movements, applied to high-profile owners including and . A native who earned a in from the in late 2024, Sweeney founded Ground Control to commercialize such tracking services. Sweeney's @ElonJet Twitter account, launched in 2020, drew widespread attention by publicizing 's jet itineraries, prompting to offer $5,000 for its deactivation—a proposal Sweeney declined, countering with demands for a or $50,000—before suspended the account and dozens of similar trackers in December 2022 under doxxing policies, despite the data's public nature. Comparable scrutiny of Swift's flights elicited a December 2023 cease-and-desist from her legal team, accusing the service of facilitating harassment by revealing locations, though Sweeney has defended it as promoting transparency on elite travel patterns and environmental impact without accessing private information. These incidents highlight tensions between utilization and claims from affluent individuals, with Sweeney relocating accounts to platforms like before further suspensions by in October 2024.

Early life and education

Childhood interests in aviation

Jack Sweeney was born around 2002 in , a suburb west of Orlando. He grew up in the Orlando area as the son of an technician and a schoolteacher, which exposed him early to aviation environments. Sweeney's interest in aviation began in childhood, sparked by his father's work; at age 9, he learned to manually track his father's commercial flights using public tools like , a website that displays real-time positions based on ADS-B signals. This hands-on hobby involved observing planes overhead and correlating them with online data feeds, fostering a fascination with movements without any commercial intent. His father's demonstrations of flight operations further fueled this pursuit, turning casual sky-watching into structured tracking of specific routes and tail numbers. As a teenager, Sweeney developed self-taught programming skills, initially demonstrated by bypassing his high school network restrictions as a freshman to install games, which highlighted his early technical aptitude. He applied these abilities to his interests by experimenting with of flight around age 18, transitioning from manual logging to basic scripts that queried public databases—efforts that remained personal and predated his later public bots. These non-commercial trials laid the groundwork for processing open-source ADS-B data, though they stayed confined to hobbyist exploration of aircraft patterns.

University studies and initial programming

Sweeney enrolled at the in 2021, pursuing a in with a minor in secure . He completed the program in December 2024, having participated in high school from 2019 to 2021 prior to full university matriculation. During his undergraduate studies, Sweeney advanced his self-taught programming abilities into structured technical projects, focusing on scripts for processing . He utilized open-source feeds of Automatic Dependent Surveillance-Broadcast (ADS-B) signals, which the mandates for most transponders to enable position reporting via and ground receivers. These scripts aggregated and parsed publicly available ADS-B from platforms like ADS-B Exchange, enabling automated monitoring of flight paths without proprietary hardware. Sweeney's early tools demonstrated proficiency in languages such as for data handling and integration, bridging his prior hobbies with academic coursework in information systems and cybersecurity. These developments garnered initial notice among online enthusiast groups for efficient techniques, though they remained non-commercial experiments confined to personal and community sharing. No formal or public-facing bots targeting specific individuals emerged during this phase, with efforts centered on refining technical methodologies for broader flight visualization.

Development of flight tracking tools

Origins in ADS-B data utilization

Jack Sweeney's flight tracking tools originated from the utilization of Automatic Dependent Surveillance-Broadcast (ADS-B) data, a surveillance technology that aircraft transmit openly to enhance air traffic safety and situational awareness. ADS-B Out, which broadcasts an 's position, altitude, velocity, and identification derived from GPS, became mandatory under (FAA) regulations for operations in most controlled U.S. airspace—specifically where a Mode C was previously required—effective January 1, 2020, as codified in 14 CFR 91.225. These unencrypted signals are emitted every second or half-second from onboard transponders and can be received by any ground-based receiver within range, typically up to 150-250 nautical miles depending on altitude and terrain, without requiring special authorization or access privileges. Sweeney's initial development focused on aggregating and processing these publicly available ADS-B feeds from crowdsourced receiver networks, such as those operated by ADS-B Exchange, a platform that maintains an independent database by declining to filter data under FAA privacy programs. Unlike official FAA data feeds, which comply with owner-requested suppressions, ADS-B Exchange and similar volunteer networks capture raw broadcasts, including from aircraft enrolled in the FAA's Limiting Aircraft Data Displayed (LADD) program, where owners can request that registration and ownership details be withheld from public FAA-sourced displays. This approach leverages the inherent openness of ADS-B designed for collision avoidance and traffic management, rather than proprietary or restricted sources, ensuring compliance with broadcast regulations while accessing comprehensive flight histories. By scripting automated collection from such feeds—often using low-cost software-defined radios and open-source tools—Sweeney enabled real-time decoding of Mode S messages embedded in ADS-B packets, which include the aircraft's 24-bit ICAO for unique identification. This methodology did not infringe on FAA suppression mechanisms, as LADD and related Privacy ICAO (PIA) programs primarily limit data redistribution through FAA channels or assigned temporary anonymous addresses for sensitive operations, but do not alter the mandatory broadcast of positional data itself. The reliance on these verifiable, third-party aggregated datasets underscored the non-intrusive legitimacy of the tools, rooted in the safety-driven public nature of ADS-B rather than invasive .

Creation and expansion of tracking bots

Jack Sweeney initiated his flight tracking efforts with the @ElonJet Twitter bot, which began posting real-time location updates for Elon Musk's private jet, identified by tail number N628TS, in June 2020. The bot utilized automated scripts to share flight paths, altitudes, and estimated carbon emissions derived from publicly available data, marking the transition from Sweeney's personal programming experiments to a focused public-facing tool. In early 2022, amid Russia's invasion of Ukraine, Sweeney expanded operations by launching @RUOligarchJets on March 1, targeting private aircraft linked to and figures associated with to highlight potential sanctions evasion through ongoing flights. This account quickly gained over 162,000 followers by monitoring more than a dozen jets owned by Russia's wealthiest individuals, emphasizing travel patterns despite international restrictions. Building on this momentum, Sweeney proliferated additional bots throughout 2022, including those for high-profile individuals such as (@TaylorJet18), Jeff Bezos, Tom Cruise (via @CelebJets in June), and various politicians, reaching approximately 30 specialized accounts by August. By 2023, the network extended beyond to platforms including and Meta's Threads, where accounts like @elonmuskjet resumed operations in July, attracting users drawn to the transparency on elite travel and associated environmental impacts. Sweeney also developed a dedicated , TheAirTraffic.com, in to centralize tracking data and broaden accessibility, further solidifying the bots' role as utilities for public oversight of . These expansions cultivated a substantial following across channels, with audiences citing interests in for high-carbon footprints and geopolitical movements.

Technical features and methodology

Sweeney's flight tracking tools automate the collection and analysis of public Automatic Dependent Surveillance-Broadcast (ADS-B) signals, which aircraft equipped with transponders emit every few seconds, including GPS-derived position, altitude, ground speed, and (registration identifier). These signals are captured by a of ground receivers and aggregated by providers like ADS-B Exchange, from which Sweeney pulls feeds via or data dumps without accessing proprietary or private information. Scripts, written primarily in , filter incoming data streams for predefined tail numbers, discarding irrelevant broadcasts to focus on targeted , enabling real-time monitoring without manual intervention or intrusion into aviation control systems. The core methodology involves parsing structured ADS-B messages—formatted as hexadecimal strings containing fields like ICAO aircraft address and position reports—into usable coordinates and metrics using libraries such as pyModeS for decoding and geopy for route approximations between waypoints. events are detected by comparing sequential data points: for instance, a plane is flagged as airborne if altitude exceeds a (e.g., 1,000 feet) and surpasses 100 knots after a period of stasis, while descents below 500 feet signal landing, with historical logs archived in databases for querying past trajectories. Speeds and routes are computed directly from broadcast vectors and extrapolated paths, adhering to standard algorithms without proprietary FAA inputs. Additional features include emissions estimation via public formulas integrating flight distance (great-circle calculations from lat/long), type-specific fuel burn rates from databases like the International Organization's correlator data, and standard CO2 conversion factors (approximately 3.15 kg per liter of ), often highlighting flights exceeding average commercial efficiency to quantify environmental impact. Ground Control, Sweeney's scalable platform, incorporates user-configurable filters for tail numbers, real-time notifications via webhooks or integrations, and opt-in privacy toggles allowing aircraft owners or subscribers to suppress public displays of their data post-collection. The system's open-source components, such as the plane-notify , facilitate replication by exposing logic and event detection under permissive licenses, ensuring transparency while relying exclusively on unencrypted, mandated public broadcasts rather than any form of signal interception or .

Major controversies

Dispute with Elon Musk

In late 2021, initiated private contact with Jack Sweeney via direct messages on , requesting the deactivation of the @ElonJet account, which utilized publicly available Automatic Dependent Surveillance-Broadcast (ADS-B) data to track the real-time location of Musk's private jet. Musk offered Sweeney $5,000 to delete the account and inquired about methods to disable the jet's transponder, citing personal safety concerns. Sweeney rejected the offer, countering with a request for $50,000 to cover college expenses and potentially purchase a , or alternatively an internship at one of Musk's companies such as or ; Musk did not respond to the counterproposal and subsequently blocked Sweeney on the platform. Following 's acquisition of in October 2022, he publicly stated an intention to uphold free speech principles by not banning the @ account, despite acknowledging its potential to reveal sensitive location data. However, on December 14, 2022, suspended @—along with approximately 24 other similar accounts tracking private jets of public figures—for violating platform rules against sharing real-time location information deemed doxxing. characterized the tracked flight paths as providing "assassination coordinates," emphasizing risks to personal security amid his high-profile status and prior threats, including an incident involving his son being followed. Sweeney contested the suspension, arguing that the data was derived from public aviation signals accessible to anyone with ADS-B receivers and that such tracking served public interest by enabling scrutiny of high-emission private jet usage, including carbon footprint calculations for elites advocating environmental policies. The account was briefly reinstated later that day after Sweeney's appeal promised implementation of a 24-hour delay on posts but was suspended again shortly thereafter. Musk announced plans for legal action against Sweeney, though no lawsuit materialized by late 2022. Tensions persisted into 2023, with Sweeney reviving a delayed-version account, @ElonJet (but with a 24-hour lag to comply with Twitter's updated policies on live location sharing), highlighting the ongoing friction between individual assertions and the afforded by unencrypted public feeds. This episode underscored Musk's selective application of free speech defenses, as the platform enforced restrictions on location despite his broader commitments to minimal moderation, while Sweeney's position emphasized the non-private nature of ADS-B broadcasts and their utility in for frequent flyers.

Conflicts with Taylor Swift

In December 2023, lawyers representing Taylor Swift sent Jack Sweeney a cease-and-desist letter demanding the immediate takedown of his @taylorswiftjets Instagram and Twitter accounts, which tracked the movements of her private jets using publicly available ADS-B data from aircraft transponders. The letter, drafted by the firm Venable, accused Sweeney of "stalking and harassing behavior" that allegedly endangered Swift by revealing her location and enabling potential stalkers, despite Sweeney having no history of direct contact with Swift, threats, or any non-public information gathering. A follow-up letter reiterated these demands, threatening litigation if Sweeney did not comply by December 26, 2023, and framing the activity as willful disregard for personal safety. Sweeney, through his legal counsel, responded in February 2024 asserting that the tracking relied solely on unaltered public data mandated by FAA regulations for aircraft safety, constituting no unlawful harassment or invasion of privacy, and that Swift's team had failed to identify any viable legal claim under Florida or federal law. Efforts by Swift's representatives to pressure social media platforms for account suspensions proved unsuccessful at the time, and Sweeney continued operating the bots without modification, emphasizing the data's availability to anyone via tools like Flightradar24. Attempts to block specific jet tail numbers from FAA public registries, similar to those later implemented in 2025 for privacy reasons, did not materialize during the initial 2023-2024 dispute. The conflict drew public scrutiny, with some commentators portraying Swift's legal response as an overreach by a seeking to shield high-profile carbon emissions from , given showing her jets emitted approximately 8,300 metric tons of CO2 in 2022—over 1,800 times the average person's annual footprint—and significant additional output during the 2023-2024 , including 393 metric tons from flights to 11 February 2024 shows alone. Swift's team countered that she offset emissions via carbon credits, purchasing double the required amount for tour-related travel, though critics noted offsets' limited efficacy in addressing actual atmospheric impacts. Legal analysts observed that equating passive aggregation of public flight to lacked precedent, as no physical proximity or personal targeting occurred, highlighting tensions between individual claims and the transparency of regulated signals.

Platform bans and suspensions

On December 14, 2022, Twitter suspended Sweeney's @ElonJet account, which tracked Elon Musk's private jet using publicly available ADS-B data, along with accounts tracking jets owned by figures such as , , and . The platform cited its doxxing policy, which prohibits sharing personal location information that could lead to physical harm, despite the data being broadcast openly by aircraft transponders for purposes. Sweeney's personal account was also temporarily frozen, though Twitter provided no prior warning or appeal process details at the time. In October 2024, suspended dozens of Sweeney's Instagram and Threads accounts that monitored private jet movements of high-profile individuals, including , , and , affecting at least 38 tracking feeds in total across platforms. attributed the actions to violations of its privacy policies and risks of enabling physical harm, though Sweeney maintained that the accounts shared only unencrypted, public flight without breaching terms beyond discomfort to tracked subjects. No formal appeals were honored, prompting Sweeney to redirect operations to independent websites hosting the same data feeds. These incidents illustrate platform responses to elite pressures, where public —intended for and —faces removal not for technical infractions but for aggregating that influential users deem invasive, thereby constraining the dissemination of verifiable, non-proprietary flight records. has affirmed continued through alternative channels, emphasizing the 's inherent via ADS-B protocols.

Impact and reception

Advocacy for transparency and environmental accountability

Sweeney's flight-tracking bots have spotlighted the environmental impact of private aviation among elites by aggregating public Automatic Dependent Surveillance-Broadcast (ADS-B) data to quantify carbon emissions from frequent flights. For instance, data from his accounts revealed that Taylor Swift's private jets emitted an estimated 8,300 metric tons of CO2 in 2022, equivalent to approximately 1,800 times the average person's annual emissions. This exposure contributed to broader discussions on aviation's role in climate change, with analyses citing such patterns to argue for policies targeting high-emission luxury travel, including potential taxes on private jet usage. The bots' outputs have also aided geopolitical accountability, particularly following Russia's invasion of . In late February , Sweeney launched the @RussianOligarchJets account to monitor aircraft owned by sanctioned Russian billionaires and tycoons, enabling journalists and observers to verify compliance with international restrictions by tracking whether these planes continued international operations. The account quickly gained traction, amassing over 162,000 followers and providing real-time data that highlighted discrepancies between sanctions announcements and actual flight activity. Advocates for Sweeney's approach frame it as a form of that democratizes access to FAA-mandated public data, countering efforts by wealthy individuals to obscure their movements through opt-outs or blocking programs. Sweeney has publicly supported broad on grounds of , emphasizing that the flight paths of influential figures warrant scrutiny given their societal and environmental ramifications. This perspective aligns with the principle that ADS-B transmissions, required for and openly broadcast, should not be shielded for elites while remaining available for analysis.

Privacy concerns and legal debates

Critics of Sweeney's flight tracking bots have raised alarms over potential invasions, alleging that real-time dissemination of ADS-B data enables doxxing, , or heightened safety s for owners, particularly high-profile individuals. These concerns posit that aggregating publicly broadcast location data into user-friendly feeds crosses into territory, despite ADS-B signals being mandatorily transmitted by for collision avoidance and receivable by anyone with appropriate . However, no documented cases link Sweeney's tools directly to physical harm or criminal acts, with claims of often resting on hypothetical rather than empirical incidents. Legal scholars and analyses have largely dismissed viability of or suits against operators like Sweeney, citing the absence of intent to threaten or direct pursuit, as required under federal statutes (18 U.S.C. § 2261A) and state equivalents, which demand more than passive republication. Courts have historically protected dissemination of publicly available , analogizing ADS-B tracking to monitoring train or ship movements via open signals, where no reasonable expectation of attaches to voluntarily broadcast . This framework underscores a first-principles distinction: emitted into for operational safety remains accessible, challenging assertions of absolute for emitters who benefit from the system's transparency. In response to misuse fears amplified by tracking bots, the FAA has iteratively enhanced privacy options for registered aircraft owners between 2022 and 2025. The Limited Aircraft Data Displayed (LADD) program, expanded during this period, allows operators to request filtering of ownership details from public databases, while the FAA Reauthorization Act of 2024 (signed May 17, 2024) and subsequent Section 803 implementation (effective March 31, 2025) enable withholding personally identifiable information like names and addresses from FAA records. These measures address registry data but do not retroactively privatize ADS-B broadcasts, which persist as unblockable public signals unless owners pursue full suppression—a process with technical limits and no guarantee against receiver-level decoding. Such regulatory evolution highlights tensions between aviation safety's reliance on and demands for selective opacity, particularly from elites whose public profiles invite scrutiny yet whose travel emissions and patterns emit traceable signals. While opt-outs mitigate some exposures, the persistence of legal access to unredacted ADS-B underscores that normalized expectations for high emitters conflict with the causal reality of broadcast technologies designed for collective benefit over .

Broader influence on aviation data policy

Sweeney's high-profile tracking of private jets, which drew widespread attention to the accessibility of ADS-B , contributed to heightened scrutiny of surveillance practices, influencing regulatory responses in the United States. The (FAA) expanded its Limited Aircraft Data Distribution (LADD) program under the FAA Reauthorization Act of 2024, requiring data aggregators and flight tracking services to honor owner requests for blocking real-time position broadcasts of sensitive aircraft, thereby limiting public dissemination while preserving ADS-B's core purpose for air traffic safety and collision avoidance. In March 2025, the FAA further implemented rules enabling private aircraft owners to petition for the of flight from public databases, citing security risks amplified by dissemination of such information. These measures, effective from late 2024 through 2025, aimed to curb misuse of unfiltered streams without altering the mandatory broadcasting requirements under 14 CFR Part 91 for operational safety. The visibility of Sweeney's tools fueled transatlantic debates on balancing data openness with in private , particularly amid efforts to address emissions from high-frequency short-haul flights. In the U.S. and , his aggregated tracking data was referenced in reports estimating carbon footprints—such as private flights emitting up to 14 times more per than equivalents—prompting advocacy for mandatory emissions registries and taxes on non-essential private to align with net-zero goals. Organizations like the pushed for ADS-B restrictions beyond uses, arguing that real-time tracking enables , while environmental groups countered that selective opt-outs favor the affluent, undermining accountability for outsized polluters. Longer-term, these developments signal a shift toward standardized protocols for data access, potentially integrating tiered privacy tiers—such as delayed reporting or anonymized aggregates—for non-safety applications, while weighing the of tracking against elite demands for exemption from scrutiny. Proponents of , drawing on ADS-B's original design as a public safety broadcast, argue that policy evolution should prioritize empirical emissions data over ad hoc blocks, fostering tools for verifiable without blanket suppression. Critics, including aviation lobbies, maintain that unrestricted sharing erodes incentives for voluntary data contributions, risking broader curtailment of open-source flight feeds essential for global .

Later career and ventures

Establishment of Ground Control

Following the controversies surrounding his flight-tracking bots, Jack Sweeney formalized his aviation data initiatives by establishing Ground Control in early 2022. The venture, announced amid his dispute with , shifted from ad-hoc Twitter accounts to a structured offering scalable flight monitoring tools derived from public ADS-B data sources. Ground Control's website, grndcntrl.net, serves as the central hub, emphasizing over viral presence. The company's core offerings include flight tracking analytics, developer APIs for integrating aircraft position data, and subscription tiers providing premium alerting and historical data access. These features enable customized monitoring for specific tail numbers, extending utility to aviation professionals and hobbyists beyond casual bot followers. Sweeney, as founder and owner, positioned Ground Control to spearhead advancements in accessible flight software, incorporating user-friendly interfaces for data visualization and server-maintained bots for reliability. With a stated mission to make flight tracking accessible to everyone, Ground Control targets the general aviation market, prioritizing tools for enthusiasts over high-profile celebrity pursuits. This entrepreneurial extension supports ongoing server operations and community resources, such as integrations for collaborative tracking, while funding expansions through donations and potential paid services. By 2024, the platform had evolved to power independent projects like TheAirTraffic for global , marking a professional maturation from Sweeney's earlier experimental bots.

Ongoing projects and professional roles

Sweeney maintains his professional role as founder and owner of Ground Control, a he established to develop aviation tracking software and monitor flight activities of prominent figures using publicly available sources like ADS-B feeds. In this capacity, he applies skills to build and update open-source tools for aircraft alerts, aggregation, and dissemination, transitioning from social media bots to independent web-based systems following restrictions. His ongoing projects center on sustaining and innovating flight-tracking infrastructure, including maintenance of accounts like on alternative platforms to ensure continuity amid suspensions, such as Meta's October bans on related profiles. These efforts prioritize operational without reliance on unresolved legal outcomes from earlier disputes, focusing instead on expanding access to for purposes. Forward-looking initiatives under Ground Control involve democratizing datasets through enhanced open-source platforms, enabling broader public and analytical use of flight patterns for accountability, including indirect emissions insights derived from tracked routes and durations. Sweeney continues to iterate on these systems, emphasizing software for predictive elements like route based on historical , though full implementations remain iterative as of 2025.

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