- A row has broken out between the world’s richest person, Elon Musk, and a 19-year-old student and aviation enthusiast from Florida.
- Musk, the co-founder and chief executive of Telsa and SpaceX, discovered the Twitter account and pleaded with Sweeney to delete it.
- “It is a security risk,” Musk, who has amassed an estimated $220bn fortune, wrote in a direct message to the teenager.
Elon Musk, the world’s richest man, has gotten into an argument with a 19-year-old Florida student and aviation enthusiast as reported by The Guardian.
Private jet tracking
Jack Sweeney created the Twitter bot @ElonJet, which tracks Musk’s Gulfstream private jet and posts real-time updates of its location.
“It is a security risk,” Musk, who has amassed an estimated $220bn fortune, wrote in a direct message to the teenager.
“I don’t love the idea of being shot by a nutcase.”
After a series of messages, which Sweeney has made public, Musk offered Sweeney a deal: “How about $5k for this account and generally helping make it harder for crazy people to track me?”
“It would be a great support in college and would possibly allow me to get a car, maybe even a [Tesla] Model 3.”
Reveal business
Musk replied that he would think about the offer, before declining, saying it “doesn’t feel right to pay to shut this down”.
“He went the opposite way of me, so why wouldn’t I go the opposite way of him?”
Sweeney said he created the account because he was a fan of Musks.
“I knew he had the jet, and I just knew it would reveal what business is going on and where he is going and stuff,” he said.
“We track the plane not who may or may not be on board,” the tracker account states.
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Source: The Guardian
