Russian Oligarchs The Newest Target Of American Teen Who Tracked Elon Musk’s Airplane

A Twitter account is tracking Russian oligarchs’ planes around the world and is run by the same 19-year-old American who tracked Tesla CEO Elon Musk’s plane earlier this year, according to Bloomberg News.

Jack Sweeney created the account this month in response to the Russian invasion of Ukraine. The account called @RUOligachJets so far has 143.100 followers and is tracking an array of oligarchs’ flying transportation.

Helicopters, private jets and commercial-sized airplanes are all being tracked and their locations updated by the account. There is the potential for people to attempt to destroy some of these planes or impede their flight capabilities.

A Ukrainian man was arrested in Spain this week after he attempted to destroy the yacht of his Russian oligarch boss. Many of these oligarchs are attempting to move these expensive modes of transportation to areas where they will not be seized, according to CNBC.

“The aircrafts these oligarchs have are absolutely crazy,” Sweeney told Bloomberg. “Their planes are huge compared to other jets.”

The oligarchs apparently enjoy flying on commercial-sized aircraft, including Airbus A319s and Boeing 737s. The owner of the Chelsea football club, Russian billionaire Roman Abramovich, has a few aircraft being tracked by the site.

Sweeney created another account to track the planes registered to Russian President Vladimir Putin and other key Russian officials. This account, @PutinJet, has 27.800 followers and Sweeney has warned that the information will not be as accurate.

Sweeney initially made headlines for tracking Musk’s plane with a Twitter account. The University of Central Florida freshman also resisted attempts from Musk to shut it down.

He reportedly went as far as asking for a $50,000 fee to stop doing so, which Musk declined. Musk offered as much as $5,000 to get Sweeney to shut the account down and called the teen’s actions a “security risk.”

Musk is not the only celebrity that Sweeney has tracked, according to The Hill. At least 15 different accounts tracking celebrities’ flights are run by him using a bot he created to post automatically when these flights land or leave an airport.