A teenager in Texas, US, has reportedly rejected billionaire Elon Musk’s offer to pay him $5,000 to delete a Twitter account that tracks the Tesla and SpaceX chief’s private jet.
Jack Sweeney, 19, runs a Twitter account called Elon Musk's Jet that gives real-time updates on Musk’s private jet using a bot. The account gives the flight map, where the jet landed, at what time and the duration of the flight. The account has over 1.97 lakh followers.
In November 2021, Elon Musk sent Sweeney a late-night Direct Message on Twitter. “Can you take this down? It is a security risk,” he asked the teenager, according to a report by Protocol. Follwing a brief exchange, Musk offered him $5,000 to delete the account in order to prevent “crazy people” from tracking his location.
The teenager, who has over 13,000 Twitter followers, wasn’t satisfied with Musk’s offer, and demanded $50,000.
“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,” Sweeney reportedly asked Musk who overtook Jeff Bezos to become the world's richest person in 2021.
“I don’t love the idea of being shot by a nutcase,” Musk told him.
In their latest exchange on January 19, Musk told him that it didn't feel right "to pay to shut this down”, reported CNN Business that viewed the messages.
"Options other than remuneration like an internship would make taking it down a lot easier," Sweeney reportedly replied.
Musk, among the most active business leaders on Twitter, has over 72 million followers on the platform and regularly tweets his thoughts on topical issues.
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