As Many Suspected, Elon’s Claims Of Jet Account Helping His Stalker Turned Out To Be Bogus

Last week when Elon Musk banned the ElonJet account, then banned a bunch of reporters for talking about it, and then insisted that they had tweeted out his assassination coordinates" leading to a crazed stalker to jump on a car with his child in it, some were... skeptical. I wasn't sure it made sense to weigh in on the details of the stalker" situation without more info, though it never made sense that a stalker would find the jet tweets particularly useful - especially when flying into an airport as massive as LAX.

That said, reporters Taylor Lorenz and Drew Harwell, both excellent tech reporters who were both suspended from Musk's Twitter over the last few days, have a more complete story of the stalker, including talking to the guy. And it's pretty damn clear that it has literally nothing to do with the ElonJet account, which did not dox him, nor help the crazed guy.

A confrontation between a member of Elon Musk's security team and an alleged stalker that Musk blamed on a Twitter account that tracked his jet took place at a gas station 26 miles from Los Angeles International Airport and 23 hours after the @ElonJet account had last located the jet's whereabouts.

The guy in question, definitely seems troubled. But there's little indication he was actually a stalker." It even sounds entirely possible that he, in a troubled state, just happened into the same gas station as Elon's security. Lorenz and Harwell tracked down the car's owner (probably because Musk, uh, doxed the license plate by revealing it on Twitter). The car had been rented out via the car-sharing service Turo, and the owner revealed who had rented it.

The car's renter, Brandon Collado, confirmed in interviews with The Post that he was the person shown in the video. He also provided The Post with videos he shot of Musk's security guard that matched the one Musk had posted to Twitter.

In his conversations with The Post, Collado acknowledged he has an interest in Musk and the mother of two of Musk's children, the musician known as Grimes, whose real name is Claire Elise Boucher. Boucher lives in a house near the gas station.

In his communications with The Post, Collado, who said he was a driver for Uber Eats, also made several bizarre and unsupported claims, including that he believed Boucher was sending him coded messages through her Instagram posts; that Musk was monitoring his real-time location; and that Musk could control Uber Eats to block him from receiving delivery orders. He said he was in Boucher's neighborhood to work for Uber Eats.

I'm not sure I'd take the interest" in Musk and Grimes as particularly confirmed, given that he was making several bizarre and unsupported claims" during the conversation. It really does seem like he's just a guy who needs help who happened into the parking lot of the gas station at a coincidental time, not because of any stalking.

The incident took place at the gas station on Tuesday, Dec. 13, approximately 15 minutes before the station closed, according to its manager, Daniel Santiago, who was working that night. Santiago said he was surprised when the car Collado was driving pulled into the Arco station and into the space next to Santiago's car, which is not a normal location for a customer to park.

He said the incident was caught on the gas station's security camera and that footage had been turned over to the South Pasadena police on Thursday.

According to the video of the incident that Musk posted, the member of Musk's security team confronted Collado sitting in the car wearing gloves and a hood. Yeah, pretty sure. Got you," the Musk security team member can be heard saying on the video.

Perhaps he is a stalker, but either way, there's basically zero evidence to suggest any of this has to do with the ElonJet account, or assassination coordinates."

And, of course, when Lorenz tweeted at Musk to see if he'd answer the email questions she and Harwell had sent him, Elon's response was... to ban her from Twitter.

Musk later reversed the ban, though Drew remains suspended unless he removes a tweet that does not dox him or even point to a live ElonJet account (and which actually cites me).

The free speech is just overwhelming.