Jack Sweeney first attracted public attention after creating a Twitter account dedicated to tracking the private plane of Tesla founder Elon Musk. The teenager now has a new pet project involving another group of billionaires: advertising the movement of private jets owned by Russian oligarchs.
“It would be great to see one of their planes captured,” Sweeney, 19, told CBS MoneyWatch while discussing his Twitter account. @RUOligarchJetsor Russian oligarch planes.
Sweeney, a first-year student at the University of Central Florida, said the account is based on an algorithm he developed that uses publicly available aircraft ownership records and flight data to track about 30 private planes belonging to Russian oligarchs. . The teenager said he was inspired to create the service after Russia’s attack on Ukraine, when people on social media asked him if he could use the algorithm used to track Musk to monitor the private planes of Russian oligarchs.
“People want these people tracked down and their assets tracked down and their yachts and planes taken,” Sweeney said.
Since Sweeney launched the Russian oligarchs’ tracking service, the Twitter account has grown to more than 340,000 followers.
The term “oligarch” – referring to a small group in government that exercises control, usually for corruption – has been used to describe Russia’s extremely wealthy business elite, whose wealth is suspected to have been gained mainly through their political ties to members of the government. , including through the privatization of state assets.
Addressing the state of the union, President Biden said the United States and its allies were waging an economic war against Russian President Vladimir Putin over the country’s invasion of Ukraine, as well as against Russian oligarchs believed to support him. On Wednesday, the Ministry of Justice announced the formation of a new working group that will focus on the oligarchs.
“We are joining our European allies to find and confiscate your yachts, your luxury apartments, your private jets. We are coming for your malicious profits,” Mr Biden said.
Tracking Putin
The latest data from the tracking account of the Russian Oligarch Jets show that a plane owned by Leonard Blavatnik, who has American citizenship but was born in Russia, took off from Newberg, New York, to Liberia on Thursday. Blavatnik earned $ 7 billion by selling a stake in a Russian oil company in 2013. He is now the 34th richest man in the world, with a net worth of nearly $ 38 billion, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index.
Sweeney also tracks Putin’s private jet @PutinJetalthough flight data so far are only for travel within Russia.
Leonard Blavatnik’s Jet N600EB took off near Newberg, New York, USA. Departure for Liberia, Guanacaste, Czech Republic (LIR, Daniel Oduber Kiros International Airport) arrival after ~ 4 hours 27 minutes. pic.twitter.com/DDEySPAJtu
– Russian oligarch planes (@RUOligarchJets) March 3, 2022
Other private planes tracked by Sweeney include planes owned by Roman Abramovich, the Russian billionaire who said this week he would sell the Chelsea football club and donate the proceeds to the victims of the Ukrainian invasion, and Leonid Michelson, the CEO of the largest supplier of natural gas in Russia.
“They have huge planes – some of them just keep flying, they don’t stop,” Sweeney said, noting that one of the planes was a commercial Boeing 787.
Owning and operating a Gulfstream GIV for private business use can cost between $ 30 million and $ 50 million a year, depending on the hangar’s services and whether one buys a new or used aircraft, according to Honeywell Aerospace. The Boeing 787 private jet version could cost more than $ 200 million, Business Insider reports.
Sweeney, who studies information technology and aims to find a job in software engineering in the aviation industry, said he did not worry about threats or security because he was in the United States. He said he would track more planes if he found information about them.
As for Musk – who tops Bloomberg’s list of $ 226 billion in wealth – Sweeney said he was still tracking his plane. He also said that Musk offered him $ 5,000 to close the account, but he refused.
“I will not take it down for only $ 5,000,” he said, noting that he had made a counter-offer of $ 50,000 or Tesla. “He said he wasn’t feeling well – then all the news came out and he blocked me.”
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