There’s a meme about the worst person you know making a good point. Well, that may be the case with this story published last night by the Washington Post. Authors Drew Harwell and Taylor Lorenz looked into the alleged stalker who got up close with a car containing Musk’s son and, well, the story doesn’t quite add up, at least not the way Musk suggested it did.

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 timing and location of the confrontation cast doubt on Musk’s assertion that the account had posted real-time “assassination coordinates” that threatened his family and led to the confrontation. Police have said little about the incident but say they’ve yet to find a link between the confrontation and the jet-tracking account.

If you’ve been following all of this Twitter drama then you know that Musk decided to ban ElonJet, the account that tracks his airplane, on the grounds that it was providing “assassination coordinates” for crazy people. He even released a video of a man in a face mask who had approached the car with Musk’s son inside.

Anyone recognize this person or car? pic.twitter.com/2U0Eyx7iwl

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) December 15, 2022

In addition to ElonJet, Musk banned Mastodon because it was where ElonJet had moved and he banned a handful of reporters, several of whom (but not all) linked to the ElonJet Mastodon account. Musk explained the bans by saying he wouldn’t tolerate real-time doxing of his location.

Criticizing me all day long is totally fine, but doxxing my real-time location and endangering my family is not

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) December 16, 2022

They posted my exact real-time location, basically assassination coordinates, in (obvious) direct violation of Twitter terms of service

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) December 16, 2022

Bari Weiss criticized Musk’s decision to ban reporters, pointing out it was exactly the kind of make-it-up-as-you-go decision that the previous executives at Twitter had engaged in. Musk shot back at her, again pointing to the danger of doxing his family in real time.

The old regime at Twitter governed by its own whims and biases and it sure looks like the new regime has the same problem. I oppose it in both cases. And I think those journalists who were reporting on a story of public importance should be reinstated.

— Bari Weiss (@bariweiss) December 16, 2022

What should the consequence of doxxing someone’s real-time, exact location be? Assume your child is at that location, as mine was.

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) December 16, 2022

But if the incident happened 23 hours after the last update from ElonJet, that’s not real time. Also, the stalker was nowhere near the airport. I guess it’s possible he could have followed the car from the airport but so far no one is claiming that including the very weird guy in the mask. The Post was able to identify him using the license plate seen in the video above. It turns out that was a rental car.

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.

Yeah, that sets off all kinds of red alerts in my mind. He sounds like a stalker who has already lost several of his marbles. He told police it was just a coincidence he pulled into a gas station right next to Musk’s car wearing a mask and dressed all in black.

Collado claimed he was making Uber Eats deliveries and visiting a friend when he pulled into the gas station and said Musk’s security worker then confronted him without reason. Collado said he believed that Musk was monitoring his real-time location.

It sounds like Musk’s security guy knew him or was aware of him before he turned up at the gas station but no one is explaining how or why. The Post also claims there’s no evidence from the videos they saw that Musk’s son was in the car at the time. But they’re not saying definitively that he wasn’t there.

I don’t blame Musk for concluding this guy is a real danger to his family even if the police aren’t able to do anything about it. He’s clearly fixated on Musk and Grimes and the way he was dressed suggests he was up to no good. The story goes on to point out that this isn’t the first serious stalker Grimes has had. She got a restraining order against another man back in 2018. He also believed she was sending him secret messages.

So the bottom line is that Elon Musk really does have security concerns most of us don’t have and he can be forgiven for getting worked up about that as anyone in his position would. But so far there’s no evidence that there was any real-time doxing involved in this incident. If there is a connection to ElonJet, no one seems to know what it is.