UCF student who tracks Elon Musk’s jet has turned his attention toward Russian oligarchs | Orlando Area News | Orlando

The University of Central Florida student who made a name for himself by creating Twitter bots that track Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos’ jet has turned his attention to another stripe of oligarch.

Given the Russian invasion of Ukraine and subsequent sanctions on Russia, freshman Jack Sweeney heard calls to start tracking the scramble of oligarchs and president Vladimir Putin. He created two accounts — @RUOligarchJets and @Putinjet — to track their comings and goings via available data.

Sweeney has shared in interviews that he’s long been into tracking planes. He came to national attention when his Musk-tracking account drew the ire of the billionaire himself. Musk offered Sweeney a lowball amount of $5,000 to delete the account. Sweeney countered, asking for either a Tesla or an internship. Musk never responded.

Sweeney’s newfound fans asked him to track oligarchs like Chelsea Football Club owner Roman Abramovich and natural gas billionare Leonid Mikhelson. He obliged, and has noticed one big difference between the American elites he follows and their Russian counterparts.

“The aircrafts these oligarchs have are absolutely crazy,” Sweeney told Bloomberg, noting that oligarchs have a tendency to travel on commercial-sized planes. “Their planes are huge compared to other jets.”

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