Joe Rogan has forayed into the conversation surrounding the @ElonJet account, which exclusively tracks Elon Musk’s private jet usage and became the center of controversy earlier this month.
During a discussion on "The Joe Rogan Experience" podcast, comedian Brian Simpson brought up the now infamous Twitter account, which he called "a little creepy."
Rogan then asked how the account was acquiring the information on Musk’s Jet, which led to a discussion about ADS-B data, an amalgamation of an aircraft’s GPS position, altitude, and ground speed, which then needs to be sorted and organized to determine a precise location.
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"What’s the point?" Rogan asked.
"I don’t know," Simpson said.
Rogan, acknowledging that he did not know the specifics of the situation, enlisted the help of his producer Jamie Vernon, who said that Jack Sweeney, who runs the @ElonJet account, countered Musk’s $5,000 offer to terminate the account and asked for $50,000.
"That’s not a bad — look, that kid saying that, like, that’s a good deal," Rogan admitted, before delving into his issues with the situation.
"But here’s the problem. How does this prevent other people from doing the exact same thing and doing the same thing, trying to get more money. Like when does that end? If that, if that’s an industry now? Tracking Elon’s jet?," Rogan said.
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Simpson said that he felt it was a mistake for the direct messages between Musk and Sweeny to go public, as it could enable others to engage in similar behavior with the hopes of easy money.
"But is it a mistake for [Sweeney] because it’s getting him a lot of attention," Rogan asked. "People are paying attention to it. He might be able to monetize it. It’s weird though. It’s definitely weird, and I would not like it at all. I don’t think it’s a nice thing to do."
Musk suspended the @ElonJet account as well as several high-profile journalists for violating Twitter's rules against "doxxing." After a public poll, Musk reinstated the journalists' accounts. The jet account is still suspended.
Later in the conversation, Rogan and Simpson discussed the lengths an individual could go to track someone without facing repercussions—with the knowledge that jet-tracking is legal, and potentially monetizable.
"What are you allowed to do? Do you think you’re allowed to like film someone and put them, like, every time they’re out public and put on a website, tell everybody where they are? Because he could hire somebody to do that," Rogan said.
"That could be stalking," Simpson replied.
"Is that stalking?" Rogan asked.
"I think it depends on how you gather the information," Simpson said.
With the data accessed by Sweeney, one can see how much carbon emissions are estimated from each of Musk’s private jet trips. Data being shared on @ElonJet feeds also shows the amount of fuel burned, cost and duration of the private flight.
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Air-to-ground air traffic systems offer several public data points, including a jet’s location and next destination.
ADS-B is an acronym for Automatic Dependent Surveillance – Broadcast and was originally designed to allow interface between aircraft avionics and air traffic control systems on the ground.
