Washington: Tesla and Space X CEO Elon Musk has offered $5,000 to Jack Sweeney, 19-year-old from Florida, to delete his Twitter account being used to track the billionaire's private jet.
However, the teen has rejected the offer.
According to a report by portal Protocol, Musk had sent a message to Sweeney, who has created a Twitter bot account '@ElonJet' to track Tesla CEO's private jet and tweets when and where the plane takes off or lands and even the duration of each trip.
In a late night message, Musk said, "Can you take this down? It's a security risk." In reply, Sweeney said, "Yes I can but it'll cost you a Model 3 only joking unless?"
The conversation continued for a few more messages. Musk asked Sweeney how much he made off the Twitter accounts, which Sweeney said was no more than $20 a month. Then Elon Musk made his own offer: $5,000 to delete the account and help the billionaire keep “crazy people” from tracking his location.
Then Sweeney asked Musk, “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 replied that he would think about it. But so far, he hasn’t paid him any money, and the account is still running.
The last message exchange was on January 19, when Musk said it didn't feel right "to pay to shut this down," CNN reported.
"Options other than remuneration like an internship would make taking it down a lot easier," the teen replied.
Twitter account ElonJet has over 196,000 followers.
According to Protocol, ElonJet is one of 15 flight-tracking accounts Sweeney has created.
Each account follows a high-profile person such as Bill Gates and Jeff Bezos. (Inputs from UNI)