Elon Musk Blocks Kid Who Asked For $50 Thousand To Stop Tracking His Jet

Twitter enthusiast Elon Musk has reportedly blocked the teenager who created a bot that tracks his Gulfstream private jet and posts real-time updates of its location. The move comes after the world’s richest man offered him only $5,000 to delete the bot, and Musk rejected his $50,000 counteroffer.

Jack Sweeney, a 19-year-old college student, has revealed to Bloomberg that the Tesla billionaire blocked him after the two feuded over the jet-tracking account late last year.

The automated account uses publicly available air-traffic data detailing the movements of Musk’s private jet. While the information is available to everyone, the Twitter account created by Sweeney makes the data easy to access and understand.

Sweeney revealed the private messages he shared with the SpaceX CEO on Twitter, where Musk offered him $5,000 to delete the account, saying it was a security risk. The teen refused and countered with a $50,000 offer.

“Can you take this down? It is a security risk. I don’t love the idea of being shot by a nutcase,” Musk said in a private message to Sweeney. “How about $5k for this account and generally helping make it harder for crazy people to track me?”

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Sweeney asked the billionaire to “up that to $50k” saying it would be “great support in college” and might even allow him to get a new car, “maybe even a Tesla Model 3.”

“Any chance to up that to $50K? It would be a great support in college and would possibly allow me to get a car, maybe even a Tesla Model 3.”

Musk declined because he believed it didn’t “feel right” to pay for the removal of such an account. And now, according to Sweeney, the billionaire has blocked all social-media accounts connected to him over the weekend.

“You know, it’s kinda strange, he wants it down and seems like he’s really mad,” he said in an interview with Bloomberg.

Last week, Sweeney revealed to Insider that he had an idea that going public with Musk’s private offer might not sit well with the billionaire, telling the outlet “He’ll probably be annoyed,” and that “he went the opposite way of me so why wouldn’t I go the opposite way of him?”

The teen is now setting his sights on other big names and has set up trackers for jets owned by Bill Gates, Jeff Bezos, and Mark Cuban, but Drake might be the most interesting because “he has the biggest plane out of all of them, it is a giant Boeing.”

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Sources: Business Insider, Bloomberg

 

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