Taylor Swift’s legal team is threatening to sue a Florida student who has made quite the name for himself by sharing publicly available information about the location of celebrity private jets.
Taylor Swift sends cease-and-desist to Jack Sweeney
For some background, Jack Sweeney got some attention roughly two years ago, when he was sharing the location of Elon Musk’s private jet. Musk ended up offering the teen $5,000 to stop tracking his jet, and some might argue that this tracking played into Musk’s decision to buy Twitter/X (as he then changed the rules around sharing the “live” location of people).
Since then, Sweeney has continued to track movements of private jets belonging to celebrities, and has shared those details on a variety of platforms. He has even done comparisons of the carbon footprints of the private jets of various celebrities.
Sweeney’s behavior isn’t sitting too well with Taylor Swift’s legal team, who has now sent Sweeney a cease-and-desist, and this seems to be escalating. The timing of this is interesting, as the letter was sent around the same time that Taylor Swift was reported as one of the celebrities with the highest carbon footprint.
In December 2023, attorneys for Swift accused Sweeney of engaging in “stalking and harassing behavior” by tracking the superstar’s jet, and stated that there was “no legitimate interest in or public need for this information, other than to stalk, harass, and exert dominion and control.” The letter continued that “while this may be a game to you, or an avenue that you hope will earn you wealth or fame, it is a life-or-death matter for our Client.”
This threat came after a report suggested that Swift had one of the highest carbon footprints of any celebrity, and I wouldn’t be surprised if on some level that factored into Swift’s legal team not wanting the plane tracked. Ironically, at the time a spokesperson for Swift stated that she often loans her private jet to others, which contradicts the claim that tracking the jet would “tell you exactly when and where she would be.”
For what it’s worth, Swift has historically had two private jets, including a 1991 Dassault Falcon 900 with the registration code N898TS, and a Dassault Falcon 7X with the registration code N621MM. It seems that the former was recently sold, so she’s now flying the latter.
A lawyer representing Sweeney doesn’t seem terribly concerned about the threat of legal actions, and had the following to say regarding this incident:
“This isn’t about putting a GPS tracker on someone and invading their privacy. It’s using public information to track the jet of a public figure. This is their means to try to quash a PR issue and bully my client to have the bad coverage die down.”
Meanwhile Musk has come to Swift’s defense, labeling Sweeney as “an awful human being.” Lol…
Sweeney is right, Swift is wrong…
Let me say that I completely understand that Swift would have safety concerns, and that she has stalkers. That’s all completely reasonable, and based in reality, and she and her team need to take precautions to keep her safe (which I’m sure they do).
However, Sweeney is doing absolutely nothing here:
- He’s sharing publicly available data
- He’s not specifically targeting her, but rather he shares this kind of information for all kinds of celebrities
- As Swift’s own representatives have acknowledged, her private jet often flies without her, so tracking the plane often doesn’t even tell you where she is
- In terms of safety, we know all the time where she’s going to be, from her concert schedule, to sports games, to award shows, so it’s not like her location is really a secret
I obviously get that her legal team would want to prevent this as much as possible, both from a safety and a publicity perspective (in terms of emissions from her jet). But this amounts to bullying more than anything else, because they assume that because she has deep pockets, they can prevent someone from doing something that’s perfectly legal. That’s not how that works.
Bottom line
Taylor Swift’s legal team is threatening to sue a Florida student who uses publicly available data to track private jets belonging to celebrities. While I can appreciate that Swift probably doesn’t want her location tracked and while there are legitimate safety concerns, Sweeney is also within his legal rights. He’s not specifically targeting Swift, and it’s not like her location is secret, as she has all kinds of appearances that are published in advance.
What do you make of this Taylor Swift private jet situation?
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