Elon Musk is super relatable. Just like us, the billionaire doesn’t want to be hijacked by a lunatic at the airport. And he’s willing to pay five-thousand big ones to make sure this never happens.
We know because Elon offered that exact amount to a college kid to deactivate the Twitter bot he built tracking the movements of Elon’s private jet. The tech-savvy stalker known as Jack Sweeney created an army of Twitter bots that parse real-time data from various air traffic control records to determine the location and heading of an aircraft. (Specifically the jets of Jeff Bezos and Elon Musk.)
After starting @ElonJet in 2020, the account recently jumped to over 100,000 followers, prompting Elon to reach out personally. And as with most billionaires, his first offer was cashless.
Sending a late-night DM, the Tesla titan wrote, “Can you take this down? It is a security risk… I don’t love the idea of being shot by a nutcase.”
Sweeney replied, “Yes I can but it’ll cost you a Model 3 only joking unless?” A cheeky retort which kicked off a round of negotiations that ping-ponged until Musk offered the kid $5,000 (the equivalent of a normal person offering two non-matching buttons and a piece of string).
Like any savvy youngster with student debt and overdraft fees, Sweeney countered with $50,000.
Since then, Musk has ghosted Sweeney, not even stopping to open the 19-year-old’s latest message offering up the Twitter account for an internship. But Sweeney isn’t taking it too hard: “I think he’s on vacay in Hawaii if you check ElonJet.”
Atta boy.
Cover Photo: PATRICK PLEUL (Getty Images)
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