Jack Sweeney Rejects Elon Musk's $5000 Offer To Delete Twitter Account, What's The Reason?

Jack Sweeney, a 19-year-old from Florida, who has a device to track celebrity private jets. (photo: twitter @JxckSweeney)

JAKARTA - Jack Sweeney, a 19-year-old boy from Florida, turned down an offer of $5.000 from Elon Musk to delete his Twitter account that could track the billionaire's private jet.

ElonJet (@elonjet) is a Twitter account with over 150.000 followers, and uses a bot developed by Sweeney to monitor Musk's flights. The feed then tweets when and where the plane takes off or lands and the duration of each trip.

This freshman has developed about a dozen other flight bot accounts that track the journeys of famous tech giants, including Bill Gates and Jeff Bezos.

Musk's initial direct message came on November 30, as first reported by Protocol.

"Can you take this down?" Musk told Sweeney, as quoted by CNN Business. "It's a security risk."

The Tesla and SpaceX CEO ended up offering the teenager $5,000 to help prevent "crazy people" from tracking his flights. Sweeney retaliated by asking for $50.000, saying he could use the money to go to college and possibly defend a Tesla Model 3.

"I don't like the idea of being shot by a madman," Musk said.

Took off from Hawthorne, California, US. pic.twitter.com/nH7RWF7S3G

— Elon Musk's Jet (@ElonJet) January 30, 2022

The last exchange of messages between them occurred on Wednesday, January 19, when Musk said it didn't feel right to "pay to close this." CNN Business has seen the message.

"Options other than remuneration, like an internship, would make it a lot easier," Sweeney replied. Musk has not yet responded to Sweeney's proposal.

Sweeney says he has been a fan of SpaceX since the launch of the first Falcon Heavy in 2018. His father worked for an airline, also fueling his interest in aviation.

"5.000 isn't enough for how much I get out of it," Sweeney said. "It doesn't replace anything, like the pleasure factor."

In addition to Elon Musk, Sweeney can also track private jet flights of several celebrities in the US. This includes host Oprah Winfrey, rapper JayZ, and many more. For the celebrities, Sweeney specifically created a Twitter account @celebJets, to track their flights, on a private jet.

Sweeney did offer Musk some technical advice, telling the billionaire about a blocking program he could use against the flight tracking program.

"Looks like he took the advice," said Sweeney, who said that it appears Musk is currently using a blocking program.

But will Sweeney still be able to track Musk's flights despite the blocking program? "Yes," said Sweeney. "It's just a little more complicated."