As the richest person in the world and the leader of a major corporation,
Elon Musk certainly values his privacy. To the extent that he offered a
student USD 5,000 to stop being a stalker who tracked the location of his
private jet.
The student named Jack Sweeney manages the @ElonJet Twitter account. As the
name implies, the account tracks the movements of Musk's private jet using
publicly available air traffic data.
According to a Protocol report, Sweeney received a Twitter DM from Musk last
fall. In the message, Musk asked Sweeney to delete the @ElonJet Twitter
account.
"Can you delete this? This is a security risk," Musk wrote in his message to
Sweeney, as quoted from Futurism, Friday (28/1/2022).
"Yes I can, but you have to pay with the Model 3, just kidding," Sweeney
replied.
The two continued to text, and Musk also briefly asked Sweeney how much
money he got from the account. When Sweeney replied that he was earning less
than $20 per month, Musk then offered Sweeney $5,000 to delete the account.
"I don't want to be shot by a lunatic," Musk said.
Sweeney then asked Musk to increase his offer to $50,000. The 19-year-old
said the money would help him pay for college and buy a car.
Musk later replied that he would consider it. But until now, the CEO of
SpaceX and Tesla has not contacted Sweeney again.
The @ElonJet account currently has over 100,000 followers on Twitter. Not
only Elon Musk, Sweeney also has 15 other bot accounts that track the
movements of private jets belonging to technology bosses, including Bill
Gates and Jeff Bezos.
While what Sweeney did was not illegal, Musk has every right to be concerned
about his privacy and safety.
Recently, the 50-year-old tweeted that people stalking his whereabouts was
starting to become a security issue.