A 19-year-old pupil says he’s asked $50,000 from Elon Musk — to take down his vastly well-liked Twitter account that tracks the billionaire’s jet — so he can buy a Tesla car.
“If he gave the be offering, I’d use it for varsity and a Tesla,” Jack Sweeney, a pupil on the College of Central Florida, informed HuffPost.
Sweeney first made headlines in overdue January after the tech-focused media web page Protocol revealed a profile concerning the teenager and his Twitter account, @ElonJet, which makes use of publicly to be had information to trace the positioning of Musk’s non-public jet.
With greater than 280,000 fans, the Twitter account stuck the eye of Musk, who merely requested Sweeney in an immediate message, “Are you able to take this down? This can be a safety chance,” in step with Trade Insider, which got a screenshot of the messages.
Musk then introduced to shop for the account from Sweeney for $5,000, including that the coed would even be “usually serving to make it tougher for loopy other folks to trace me,” Trade Insider reported.
The teenager offered a counteroffer to the tech mogul, upping the ante to $50,000.
AP Photograph/Jae C. Hong, Document
Sweeney makes use of public flight information equipped by means of ASD-B Trade, a web site that collects flight information in genuine time, to trace Musk’s non-public jet. He then tweets out its location.
On Jan. 18, the coed defended his account, announcing in a chain of tweets that he has each and every proper to “submit jet whereabouts,” bearing in mind that “ADS-B information is public.” Sweeney additionally argued that Twitter coverage lets in accounts to proportion “information discovered on different websites” at the platform.
In a message to HuffPost, Sweeney mentioned that he “understands” why Musk would need the Twitter account taken down and added that Musk is a “beautiful just right particular person” who does nice paintings.
Sweeney’s viral trade with Musk has ended in new task alternatives.
Whilst he recently works as an software developer for UberJets, a non-public constitution jet company, Sweeney informed HuffPost that he’s bearing in mind a role be offering from Stratos Jet Charters, every other non-public constitution corporate.