Taylor Swift private jet: student who runs account which tracks singer's flights threatened with legal action

A student who runs a private jet flight trackers has been threatened with action by Taylor Swift's legal team.

Jack Sweeney runs social media accounts which track the private jet flights of the rich and famous including X and Tesla owner Elon Musk as well as high profile politicians and celebrities. However, Taylor Swift's legal team have sent Mr Sweeney a cease and desist, requesting that he stop tracking the movement of the singer's private jet.

Mr Sweeney, a student at The University of Central Florida, said that he had received a cease and desist letter in which his actions was described as "reckless" by Swift's lawyers. They added that the tracker left her in a "constant state of fear for her personal safety" and accused him of "stalking and harassing behaviour".

Swift has dealt with stalkers in the past, with a man being charged only last month with stalking and harassment near her Nw York home. The letter added: "While this may be a game for you or an avenue that you hope will earn you wealth or fame, it is a life-or-death matter."

The student's legal team have rejected the stalking and harassment claims, adding that the purpose of the tracker is to provide "transparency" on public information available via the Federal Aviation Administration. James Slater, a lawyer representing Mr Sweeney, said: "There's no claim to just publicising public information. And in Ms Swift's lawyers' letter, they didn't address any real claims." Swift has battled criticism in the past for her carbon footprint, with much of the criticism focused on her use of private jets. Swift's representatives have commented on that situation in the past, saying that she buys carbon credits, which are used to fund net-zero and environmentally friendly projects, to offset her footprint. ahead of her huge, worldwide Eras Tour, her publicist said: "Taylor purchased more than double the carbon credits needed to offset all tour travel."

The recent Grammy Award record-breaker is expected to make a highly-anticipated private jet journey in the coming days when she travels from Japan to the US. Speculation is high over whether Swift will travel from her Tokyo Eras Tour date to Las Vegas to support boyfriend Travis Kelce in the Super Bowl on Sunday February, 11.

Mr Sweeney's social media accounts grew to prominence in the aftermath of the invasion of Ukraine, when he tracked the private jet movements of Russian oligarchs who were under pressure from sanctions. Since then, the student has been involved in public spats with Elon Musk over the tracker 'ElonJet'.

Musk said that publicising the publicly-available information on his flights and airports led to an alleged altercation in which he and his 2-year-old child were followed by a "crazy stalker". Police said however that there was no evidence that the alleged stalker was using the ElonJet account to track movements, while Mr Sweeney also noted that no posts had been made to the account in the 24 hours before the alleged altercation.