ORLANDO, Florida — A University of Central Florida freshman received a $5,000 offer from Elon Musk to take down his Twitter account, which tracks the billionaire’s private jet, according to a report from WKMG.
Jack Sweeney, a 19-year-old freshman at UCF, manages @ElonJet, a Twitter account that uses a bot to track Musk’s private jet.
Sweeney said he created an algorithm that tracks flight data through a plane’s transponder, the report said.
The account caught the attention of Musk, who messaged Sweeney asking him to take the account down due to security risks, the report said.
“Never intended for it to create a security concern,” Sweeney said in their private conversation. “I put a good amount of time into development and now make income from it that helps in college.”
After the Tesla founder offered him $5,000 to delete the account, the 19-year-old counter-offered for $50,000, the report said.
“We track the plane not who may or may not be on board,” Sweeney tweeted from the jet-tracking account.
The teen said Musk asked him for help to update his security system but went silent after having said, “It doesn’t seem right to pay to shut this down,” according to the station.
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