- Elon Musk banned Jack Sweeney's ElonJet tracking account on Wednesday.
- A new subreddit dedicated to the jet tracker has amassed almost 40,000 members in days.
In the wake of Elon Musk banning a Twitter account that tracked the location of Musk's private jet, a Reddit page dedicated to the account was one of the fastest-growing subreddits on Friday, according to the data analytics website Subreddit Stats. The page, r/ElonJetTracker, has amassed almost 40,000 members in just two days.
Jack Sweeney's ElonJet, created in 2020, was an automated Twitter bot that regularly posted information about Musk's jet flight times and location, found through public flight tracking and transponder data.
When Musk announced his intention to acquire Twitter in April, Sweeney speculated to Insider that Musk might do something about his account — and on Wednesday, he banned ElonJet along with Sweeney's personal accounts and all his other profiles.
In the moments after he was banned, Sweeney told Insider that he was in disbelief and would keep promoting the accounts on other platforms.
Musk sparked further condemnation Thursday night and Friday after he suspended a slew of prominent tech journalists, claiming they had participated in "doxxing" him by reporting on the ElonJet saga.
Many critics have called Musk hypocritical for banning ElonJet and journalist accounts after his long history of saying he would prioritize "free speech" as the head of Twitter, and his decision to pardon a mass of previously banned users, including far-right influencers.
The r/ElonJetTracker subreddit, created Wednesday, has a message pinned to the top of the forum with links to all of Sweeney's ElonJet accounts across social media platforms.
"Given the latest attempt to hide this corporate jet's whereabouts, which is in part funded by US taxpayers, this community will help to keep this publicly available information easily accessible," the subreddit's "About" section says.
Many of the top posts on the subreddit on Friday shared the coordinates of Musk's jet and criticized his choice to ban the accounts. One user on the subreddit wrote a post with over 1,000 upvotes saying they had been banned from Twitter on Thursday for posting a link to r/ElonJetTracker.
Moderators of r/ElonJetTracker did not respond to Insider's requests for comment.
In 2021, before Musk took over Twitter in late October this year, he tried to persuade Sweeney to take down the jet account by offering him $5,000. Sweeney countered with a request for $50,000. After the two couldn't reach an agreement, Musk blocked Sweeney from his personal account.