He Tracks Jets of the Rich and Famous. Swift Isn't Happy

Taylor Swift seems to be enjoying her life lately, and doesn't seem to mind the attention that comes with it—with the exception of the attention now coming from an infamous college student with a penchant for tracking the private planes of celebrities, politicians, and billionaires. Jack Sweeney, now a junior at the University of Central Florida, landed on the radar after a public spat with X owner Elon Musk over Sweeney's surveillance of Musk's aircraft (Musk has banned the X account Sweeney used to track him). But Sweeney has accounts dedicated to other celebs' air travel, and the 34-year-old "Anti-Hero" singer is now threatening legal action against Sweeney for keeping tabs on her, reports the Washington Post.

The paper reports that in December, a lawyer for Swift shot off a cease-and-desist letter to Sweeney demanding that he stop his "stalking and harassing behavior." The missive noted that Sweeney's actions were causing "direct and irreparable harm, as well as emotional and physical distress" to Swift and had increased her "constant state of fear for her personal safety." "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 from Katie Wright Morrone noted, citing Swift's trouble with stalkers.

Facebook and Instagram shuttered Sweeney's Swift-specific accounts around the time of Morrone's letter, leading Sweeney to simply include his Swift updates on his "Celeb Jets" accounts on those platforms, as well as on other social media sites like Mastodon, Telegram, and Bluesky—leading to another letter last month from Morrone complaining about Sweeney's continuing "harassing conduct." One of the planes Swift apparently travels in appears to have been sold recently—as noted by Sweeney on X, which currently only allows Sweeney's jet-tracking accounts on both Musk and Swift with a 24-hour delay.

story continues below

Sweeney tells the Post that Morrone's warnings are harassment in their own right, and an attempt to keep him from posting public information that he pulls from the FAA and aviation hobbyists. He also notes that his flight logs don't give enough information on Swift's exact whereabouts in a particular city to help stalkers. "This information is already out there," he says. "Her team thinks they can control the world." More from Forbes on the FAA program that some big names used to shield their travel on private planes. (More Taylor Swift stories.)