Elon Musk, the founder and CEO of Tesla and SpaceX, known as a crypto wizard and Time magazine’s Person of the Year, has been a familiar figure online for years. Not only does he shock people with his often wild statements, but his cryptic tweets also cause wild swings in cryptocurrency prices. Yet, despite his big online presence, even Elon Musk got a chill from a 19-year-old kid recently.
The main character here is Jack Sweeney, a 19-year-old student at the University of Central Florida, who recently stirred up the internet by revealing his conversation with billionaire Elon Musk. Jack created the Twitter account ElonJet, where people can track the private jet routes of the world’s richest man. This account has over 127,000 followers and uses automated software to pull data from ADS-B, the civilian aircraft tracking system, to follow Musk’s private planes in real time.
Seeing this as a security risk, Elon reached out to Jack to ask him to take down the account. But Jack cheekily replied, “I could do that, but you have to pay me for a Model 3. Just kidding, unless you’re serious?” He also said he’s been a fan of Elon for a long time. Musk then offered $5,000 to Jack because he “doesn’t want some crazy person shooting him down,” while Jack demanded ten times that amount plus a Model 3. So far, Jack hasn’t received any payment.
Currently, Elon Musk has blocked Jack on his personal account, while Jack expressed interest in interning at one of Musk’s companies instead of taking money. But that move might have been a misstep.
