Taylor Swift threatens legal action against student tracking her private jet
Jack Sweeney, a 21-year-old student at the University of Central Florida, received a cease-and-desist letter from the pop star’s lawyers, stating that his social media posts are a ‘life-or-death matter for our client.’
Lawyers representing pop star Taylor Swift are threatening to sue a Florida student who is tracking Swift’s jet use via social media, labelling it as “stalking and harassing behavior.”
The Washington Post reports that Jack Sweeney, a 21-year-old student at the University of Central Florida, received a cease-and-desist letter from Swift’s lawyers in December. The letter warned that if he did not stop sharing the location of Swift’s private jet, they would “have no choice but to pursue any and all legal remedies.”
In the legal letter, Katie Wright Morrone, a lawyer at the law firm Venable representing Swift, wrote that Sweeney and his posts posed an “imminent threat” to the pop star’s “safety and well-being.”
“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,” the letter read. “Ms. Swift has dealt with stalkers and other individuals who wish her harm.”
Swift has encountered several stalkers in her career. In January, a 33-year-old man was arrested twice within three days for allegedly stalking Swift outside her New York City home.
Morrone added that there was “no legitimate interest in or public need for this information, other than to stalk, harass, and exert dominion and control.”
Sweeney operates several social media accounts that track private jet flights of celebrities and other high-profile figures, such as Kim Kardashian, Bill Gates, and Donald Trump.
In 2022, his account @ElonJet was banned from X (formerly Twitter) after he posted information about the site’s billionaire owner, Elon Musk.
In his posts, Sweeney cites publicly available data from the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA). Along with their takeoff and landing times, Sweeney shares an estimate of the environmental impact of the private planes’ carbon emissions. His coverage earned him recognition in Forbes 30 under 30 in 2024.
In The Washington Post report, Sweeney stated that he was simply posting public information that is “already out here.” His lawyer called the claims from Swift’s legal team “hyperbolic and unfounded,” asserting that the posts posed “no threat” to the superstar.
Tree Paine, Swift’s publicist, told the Post that she would not comment on “any ongoing police investigation” into whether alleged stalkers used Sweeney’s coverage to find Swift, but, she said, “the timing of stalkers suggests a connection.”
“His posts tell you exactly when and where she would be.”
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