Taylor Swift vs. Plane Enthusiast From Florida

By  Ye
March 12, 2024

In late December of 2023, Taylor Swift’s lawyer sent a cease-and-desist letter to Florida student and plane tracker, Jack Sweeny. He was warned to cease his activity after tracking down Taylor Swift’s plane. The letter said that Jack’s action had caused emotional distress to the singer and her family. Taylor’s lawyers asked him to stop what he’s doing but Jack had declared that he will continue to track any billionaires’ planes.

Jack Sweeny is a university student from the University of Central Florida. He’s been tracking down the planes of politicians, billionaires, and celebrities for years because of his interest in aviation and technology. Jack created a plane tracking website called “TheAirTraffic.com” that lets anyone view their plane activity. It also shows helicopters too. This website tracks where these aircrafts are, when they will fly, and when and where the planes or helicopters will land. Jack Sweeney had famously tracked down the plane of Elon Musk in 2022. At first, Musk didn’t ban Jack’s Twitter account. His reason was because he believed in “free speech” and wouldn't ban Sweeney even when he got tracked. Eventually though, Elon did ban him and threatened to sue him after his offer of giving Jack $5,000 to shut down his account got rejected.

Do you think that Taylor’s lawyer’s threat will make Jack Sweeney back down? If you said yes, you would be dead wrong. Jack’s lawyer, James Slater, had stated that there’s nothing unlawful in tracking private planes. Jack says that he believes in transparency and public information. He doesn’t intend any harm on Taylor Swift though. Jack even gave her advice on privacy. He stated that Taylor could register her plane through an anonymous corporate entity. Plus, she could’ve just avoided putting her actual birthday and initials when choosing an ID code if she worries about her privacy.

Taylor Swift was the biggest celebrity carbon polluter according to a 2022 analysis, with her contributing more than 3,800 tons of carbon emissions. That analysis credited Sweeney’s accounts, which was how Taylor’s pollution contribution was known. The singer claimed that she uses enough carbon offsets to cancel emissions from her latest tour twice over (source: the BBC). According to publicists, Taylor had bought more than double the amount of carbon credits for her tour travel (source: AP News). Taylor is known to use her private jet frequently like a car. If she wants to go to a Starbucks even if it’s close to her home, she would literally use her jet to go there. It’s hilarious and ridiculous.

All in all, it seems that Taylor wouldn’t actually proceed to take further legal actions against Sweeney according to Jack’s attorney. The cease-and-desist seems to be a bullying method in an attempt to get Jack to stop tracking the jet. This was unlike Sweeney’s confrontation with Elon Musk, who tried to bribe him in to delete his account. That was before Jack was sued by Elon. Thankfully for now, Jack is safe from further legal consequences from Taylor Swift.

Sources:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2024/02/06/taylor-swift-jet-tracking-legal-threat/ 

https://www.cnn.com/2024/02/06/tech/taylor-swift-private-jet-tracker/index.html 

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-68248168 

https://nypost.com/2024/02/20/us-news/college-student-tracking-taylor-swifts-private-jet-has-done-nothing-unlawful-his-lawyers-say/ 

https://apnews.com/article/taylor-swift-jet-tracking-jack-sweeney-c2a22089f84c9dcada4fca7ed138a399 

https://carbonmarketwatch.org/2024/02/13/taylor-swift-and-the-top-polluters-department/#:~:text=Her%20private%20jet%20usage%20amounted,that%20of%20the%20average%20European.