A University of Central Florida college student who became known for creating a Twitter bot that tracks Elon Musk's private jet is now creating bots to track Russian oligarchs.
Jack Sweeney, the 19-year-old student, creates his bots using legal websites that track aircraft transponders and his own IT and coding skills. Known for his abilities, Sweeney started receiving requests to monitor Russian aircraft.
On Saturday, he obliged by creating the Twitter account @RUOligarchJets, which is tracking over a dozen jets that are owned by prominent Russians.
Those oligarchs being tracked are Vladimir Potanin, Russia's wealthiest person, Roman Abramovich, the owner of Chelsea's soccer team, and Alexander Abramov, the head of the country's largest steel producer.
"I launched [the accounts] because people had asked me to track them as they knew I had the capability to do so," Sweeney told Fox News.
Beyond tracking those private jets, Sweeney also created an account named @PutinJet, but he warned it is not as accurate as the other account. He told Fox News that "there are a dozen VIP Russian planes, and ADS-B coverage isn't great in Russia."
The other thing that is important to point out is that while the accounts track the flights, they do not share who is on board or other vital information that intelligence agencies would be interested in knowing.
The accounts are growing quickly, with @RUOligarchJets at 280,000 and @PutinJet at 56,000.
While online many have praised Sweeney, he shared with Fox News that the U.S. or Ukrainian governments did not request the accounts, and they have not contacted him.
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