Teenager says no to Elon Musk's $5000 offer to stop tracking his private jet, asks for $50K
India Today
Elon Musk had been in negotiations with an aviation enthusiast to stop his Twitter bot from leaking the location of Musk's private jet at all times. The negotiations now seem to have reached a stalemate.
The 19-year-old student who managed to gain Elon Musk's attention through his Twitter bot has turned down the billionaire's offer to shut it down. Instead, the aviation enthusiast has asked for $50,000 to do so, a figure that is ten times what Musk originally offered. He says that the amount will help him in college and possibly get a Tesla Model 3.
As the story unfolds, Musk had offered $5,000 to a student from Florida to stop tracking his private jet and making its location public. The student in question is Jack Sweeney, creator of the Twitter bot @ElonJet. This bot manages to track Elon Musk’s private jet throughout the world's airports and post real-time updates of its location.
Back in December last year, Musk had noticed the bot on Twitter and reached out to Sweeney through Direct Messages. The billionaire requested Sweeney to take down the Twitter bot as it understandably posed a security risk for him. “I don’t love the idea of being shot by a nutcase,” Musk had written.
The appeal was followed by a conversation between the two, that led to Musk offering Sweeney $5,000, or about Rs 3.73 lakh, for shutting down the Twitter account. In addition, Musk had asked Sweeney to help him keep his plane's whereabouts a secret from such stalkers. Sweeney later made it public that he had declined the offer, and instead, asked for more to put Musk's mind at ease.
Interestingly, Sweeny turned down the initial offer with a 10X demand in return. He asked Musk for $50,000 (about Rs 37.55 lakh) to shut down the Twitter account that tracked his private jet. The amount, he said, would cover his school fees and help him buy a Tesla car.
It seems like he overshot his end of the negotiation as Musk eventually turned it down. Musk said that it “doesn’t feel right to pay to shut this down,” before going AWOL on his fanboy. Sweeney is now left sharing the fun interaction with the media in hopes that Musk reinitiates the negotiations and offers him a new deal.
Sweeney has been a fan of Musk for a long time and had started the Twitter bot because of the same. Though he now feels "5k is not enough,” as per his interaction with Insider, he once even offered Musk to delete the account in exchange for an internship with Musk. If or when Musk gets back on the deal table with the student, this might just be the solution that both of them agree on.
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