Elon Musk Offers Teenager $5000 To Remove Twitter Account After Security Concern

Elon Musk has offered a young entrepreneur $5,000 to remove a Twitter bot tracking his private plane’s movements, but instead, the teen is interested in an internship.

After Elon Musk said it “doesn’t feel right” to pay him to take down the @ElonJet account, 19-year-old University of Central Florida freshman, Jack Sweeney, requested the internship to remove it but is yet to hear back.

Elon Musk has now been taunting him lately by having his plane fly when he is known to be elsewhere.

15 Twitter bots that Sweeney built to follow the personal planes of tech billionaires such as Bill Gates and Jeff Bezos have amassed many followers each, although the account tracking Musk’s jet is by far the most popular with 88,000 followers.

Although Sweeney’s technique depends on readily accessible facts, Protocol reported that it necessitates advanced expertise in order to match transponder frequencies with separately available anonymous flight plans.

According to Protocol, Musk was concerned about the @ElonJet popularity and contacted Sweeney last week to ask that he remove his account so that “crazy people” wouldn’t be able to track his movements.

Musk told Sweeney in their DM conversation.

‘I don’t love the idea of being shot by a nutcase,’

Musk seemed shocked that the system, uses public information and commented that ‘Air traffic control is so primitive.’

When Sweeney saw a message come through from one of his idols he was obviously star-struck at first but he doesn’t let this get in the way of his negotiating and even joked that he would remove the account in return for a Tesla Model 3.

Sweeney revealed that he makes roughly $20 a month from the accounts, Musk offered him $5,000 to take them down.

Sweeney responded with:

‘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,’

Musk said he would think about it but has not paid anything yet.

Sweeney explained to Musk in their most recent exchange on Wednesday:

‘I understand your view, but I hope that you would see my interest because I have been developing this since I was only in high school. Options other than remuneration like an internship would make taking it down a lot easier,’

Sweeney has said that he hasn’t heard back from Elon Musk regarding the offer.