A Florida college student refuses to take down a flight tracker that shows the location of Elon Musk’s plane, despite a $5,000 offer from the business mogul.
The twitter account @ElonJet is now pushing 300,000 followers and tweets out the travels of Musk’s gulfstream aircraft, including the stops he makes back in the Bay Area.
Jack Sweeney made it.
“It’s interesting to see where he goes and some other people are interested in it,” he said.
The IT major at the University of Central Florida said he likes Tesla and SpaceX so he created software that tweets it’s location when the plane is on the move.
But in late November, Musk reached out.
“One night when I’m about to go to bed he just [direct messages] me, ‘hey could you take this down, it’s a security risk.’ he was asking me how it works and everything,” said Sweeney. “After that he offered me the $5,000, after I gave him some advice, if I would take the account down and help him to make it harder for people to track him. And I asked for $50,000, then last Wednesday he said ‘it doesn’t feel right to pay to take this down.’”
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NBC News has reviewed the message exchange.
Sweeney later wrote he’d take it down for an internship, but now says Musk blocked him on Twitter.
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As for the security risk, NBC Bay Area’s aviation expert said virtually all civilian aircraft, even some military and government ones, can be tracked by a wide variety of tracking systems available to the public.
Legal Analyst Steve Clark said it doesn't break any laws.
"It could backfire on Mr. Musk if he tried to quiet this through the use of his legal team,” said Clark. “I understand that he did not want this information out there because he is concerned for his privacy and security. But at the same time he’s put himself out to the public not just as a business entrepreneur, but a celebrity.”
Sweeney has launched other accounts to track billionaires like Bill Gates and Jeff Bezos.
The successful Musk tracker will stay up.
“I’m not going to take it down now if he’s not going to give me anything,” said Sweeney.
NBC Bay Area reached out to Tesla to see if Musk wanted to comment, but has not heard back.
