Elon Musk on Wednesday said a "crazy stalker" climbed on to the bonnet of the car that was carrying his toddler son and blocked it from moving.
The incident seemingly prompted the father of 10 to announce a new policy for Twitter accounts providing real-time location information.
Mr Musk said the stalker had followed the car because he or she thought the billionaire was in the vehicle.
The child in the car was "X", whose mother is singer-songwriter Grimes and who was born in May 2020. The name is short for the unusual X Æ A-12.
"Last night, car carrying lil X in LA was followed by crazy stalker [thinking it was me], who later blocked car from moving and climbed on to hood," Mr Musk said on Twitter.
The message was linked to an earlier tweet in which he said he was banning accounts that "doxx", or illegally provide real-time location information.
The new Twitter owner specifically targeted a bot account tracking his private jet and he said he was taking legal action against its owner, Jack Sweeney, 20.
Mr Musk did not explain or provide context on how an account tracking his private jet might have given information that could have tipped a stalker off to the location of his car.
The ElonJet account run by Mr Sweeney and the student's own account were suspended as of Wednesday night.
The jet tracker followed the flight patterns of Mr Musk's jet by using data available in the public domain.
The suspension goes against Mr Musk's November tweet confirming his commitment to free speech “extends even to not banning the account following my plane, even though that is a direct personal safety risk”.
It was the latest in a series of social media policy changes made by Mr Musk on the fly.
Twitter published a newly updated policy on the same day about private information, stating that tweets cannot share someone else's location.
It indirectly mentions accounts such as ElonJet, saying “live location information [and] identifying information that would reveal a person's location, regardless if this information is publicly available”, breached the policy.
Twitter users expressed confusion about the new policy on public figures or events.
Mr Sweeney operates similar bot accounts tracking Mr Musk's jet on Facebook, Instagram and Telegram.
He tweeted on Saturday that Ella Irwin, Twitter's vice president of trust and safety, requested the account be monitored and less visible to users.
He previously said he had turned down a $5,000 offer from Mr Musk in 2021 to shut down the bot account.
The ElonJet account had more than 490,000 followers on Twitter. Its follower count grew when it temporarily returned. It has now been closed again.
Mr Sweeney said he used public data to track Mr Musk's jets and those carrying other celebrities, and that he condemned the use of the account for “tracking you down and anyone looking for you in person”.
Twitter accounts tracking the jets of billionaire tech entrepreneurs Mark Zuckerberg, Jeff Bezos and Bill Gates have also been suspended.
Mr Musk's stalker story comes during a tumultuous time for the eccentric Tesla co-founder. Stocks in the electric car maker are in free-fall as Mr Musk dives deeper into America's culture wars.
He this week lost the crown of world's richest man and financial analysts expect Tesla stock to plunge much further.
Mr Musk bought Twitter for $44 billion in late October and has set about making sometimes drastic changes on how the platform operates.
He has made sweeping cuts to the company’s workforce, including those responsible for trust and safety, and has been making his own content decisions, such as reinstating the accounts of people including former president Donald Trump, who had previously been suspended.
Reuters contributed to this report
HIJRA
Starring: Lamar Faden, Khairiah Nathmy, Nawaf Al-Dhufairy
Director: Shahad Ameen
Rating: 3/5
UAE currency: the story behind the money in your pockets
The specs
AT4 Ultimate, as tested
Engine: 6.2-litre V8
Power: 420hp
Torque: 623Nm
Transmission: 10-speed automatic
Price: From Dh330,800 (Elevation: Dh236,400; AT4: Dh286,800; Denali: Dh345,800)
On sale: Now
Yahya Al Ghassani's bio
Date of birth: April 18, 1998
Playing position: Winger
Clubs: 2015-2017 – Al Ahli Dubai; March-June 2018 – Paris FC; August – Al Wahda
UAE currency: the story behind the money in your pockets
KILLING OF QASSEM SULEIMANI
Killing of Qassem Suleimani
Most sought after workplace benefits in the UAE
- Flexible work arrangements
- Pension support
- Mental well-being assistance
- Insurance coverage for optical, dental, alternative medicine, cancer screening
- Financial well-being incentives
In numbers: China in Dubai
The number of Chinese people living in Dubai: An estimated 200,000
Number of Chinese people in International City: Almost 50,000
Daily visitors to Dragon Mart in 2018/19: 120,000
Daily visitors to Dragon Mart in 2010: 20,000
Percentage increase in visitors in eight years: 500 per cent
The five pillars of Islam
1. Fasting
2. Prayer
3. Hajj
4. Shahada
5. Zakat
MATCH INFO
Karnatake Tuskers 114-1 (10 ovs)
Charles 57, Amla 47
Bangla Tigers 117-5 (8.5 ovs)
Fletcher 40, Moores 28 no, Lamichhane 2-9
Bangla Tiger win by five wickets
Dubai World Cup factbox
Most wins by a trainer: Godolphin’s Saeed bin Suroor(9)
Most wins by a jockey: Jerry Bailey(4)
Most wins by an owner: Godolphin(9)
Most wins by a horse: Godolphin’s Thunder Snow(2)
Killing of Qassem Suleimani
Evacuations to France hit by controversy
- Over 500 Gazans have been evacuated to France since November 2023
- Evacuations were paused after a student already in France posted anti-Semitic content and was subsequently expelled to Qatar
- The Foreign Ministry launched a review to determine how authorities failed to detect the posts before her entry
- Artists and researchers fall under a programme called Pause that began in 2017
- It has benefited more than 700 people from 44 countries, including Syria, Turkey, Iran, and Sudan
- Since the start of the Gaza war, it has also included 45 Gazan beneficiaries
- Unlike students, they are allowed to bring their families to France
Specs
Engine: Duel electric motors
Power: 659hp
Torque: 1075Nm
On sale: Available for pre-order now
Price: On request
Farage on Muslim Brotherhood
Nigel Farage told Reform's annual conference that the party will proscribe the Muslim Brotherhood if he becomes Prime Minister.
"We will stop dangerous organisations with links to terrorism operating in our country," he said. "Quite why we've been so gutless about this – both Labour and Conservative – I don't know.
“All across the Middle East, countries have banned and proscribed the Muslim Brotherhood as a dangerous organisation. We will do the very same.”
It is 10 years since a ground-breaking report into the Muslim Brotherhood by Sir John Jenkins.
Among the former diplomat's findings was an assessment that “the use of extreme violence in the pursuit of the perfect Islamic society” has “never been institutionally disowned” by the movement.
The prime minister at the time, David Cameron, who commissioned the report, said membership or association with the Muslim Brotherhood was a "possible indicator of extremism" but it would not be banned.
What is blockchain?
Blockchain is a form of distributed ledger technology, a digital system in which data is recorded across multiple places at the same time. Unlike traditional databases, DLTs have no central administrator or centralised data storage. They are transparent because the data is visible and, because they are automatically replicated and impossible to be tampered with, they are secure.
The main difference between blockchain and other forms of DLT is the way data is stored as ‘blocks’ – new transactions are added to the existing ‘chain’ of past transactions, hence the name ‘blockchain’. It is impossible to delete or modify information on the chain due to the replication of blocks across various locations.
Blockchain is mostly associated with cryptocurrency Bitcoin. Due to the inability to tamper with transactions, advocates say this makes the currency more secure and safer than traditional systems. It is maintained by a network of people referred to as ‘miners’, who receive rewards for solving complex mathematical equations that enable transactions to go through.
However, one of the major problems that has come to light has been the presence of illicit material buried in the Bitcoin blockchain, linking it to the dark web.
Other blockchain platforms can offer things like smart contracts, which are automatically implemented when specific conditions from all interested parties are reached, cutting the time involved and the risk of mistakes. Another use could be storing medical records, as patients can be confident their information cannot be changed. The technology can also be used in supply chains, voting and has the potential to used for storing property records.
MANDOOB
%3Cp%3EDirector%3A%20Ali%20Kalthami%3C%2Fp%3E%0A%3Cp%3EStarring%3A%20Mohammed%20Dokhei%2C%20Sarah%20Taibah%2C%20Hajar%20Alshammari%3C%2Fp%3E%0A%3Cp%3ERating%3A%204%2F5%3C%2Fp%3E%0A%3Cp%3E%3C%2Fp%3E%0A
Kill%20
%3Cp%3E%3Cstrong%3EDirector%3A%3C%2Fstrong%3E%20Nikhil%20Nagesh%20Bhat%3C%2Fp%3E%0A%3Cp%3E%3Cstrong%3EStarring%3C%2Fstrong%3E%3A%20Lakshya%2C%20Tanya%20Maniktala%2C%20Ashish%20Vidyarthi%2C%20Harsh%20Chhaya%2C%20Raghav%20Juyal%3C%2Fp%3E%0A%3Cp%3E%3Cstrong%3ERating%3A%3C%2Fstrong%3E%204.5%2F5%3Cbr%3E%3C%2Fp%3E%0A
