Jack Sweeney, the 19-year-old behind the Twitter bot @ElonJet, which tracks the whereabouts of the Tesla CEO’s private jet, told Protocol that he received an early morning DM last year, asking, “Can you take this down? It is a security risk.”
Sweeney created 15 accounts using bots to track the planes of well-known figures, like Bill Gates and Jeff Bezos, but Elon’s tracker, which was started in June 2020 during lockdown, has garnered the most interest, totaling over 250,000 followers. After a brief negotiation with Musk, Sweeney ultimately rejected his offer of $5,000 to delete the account, and gave him a counteroffer. “Any chance to up that to $50k? It would be great support in college and would possibly allow me to get a car maybe even a Model 3,” he responded.
Elon said he would think about it, but Sweeney never heard from the Tesla founder again.
In an interview with Insider, Sweeney explained why $5,000 wasn’t going to do it for him. “I’ve done a lot of work on this and 5k is not enough,” he said, adding that the offer wasn’t enough to supplant “the fun I have in this, working on it.” Sweeney admitted he only chose to go public with their interaction after Musk essentially ghosted him, saying, “He went the opposite way of me, so why wouldn’t I go the opposite way of him?”
Musk has since tried to work around Sweeney’s bots through a blocking system, but the teenager seems up to the challenge.
Aside from worrying Elon, Sweeney is a college student who also has a part-time job with UberJets where he helps find cheaper options by tracking chartered flights.
