Elon Musk offers a 19-year-old $5,000 to take down his Twitter account that tracks his private jet

Elon Musk offered a 19-year-old man $5,000 to take down his Twitter account that tracks his private jet.

According to the tech news outlet Protocol, the Tesla and SpaceX CEO reportedly messaged Jack Sweeney, the man behind @ElonJet, via Twitter DM last fall.

The account, which has over 91,000 followers, reportedly tracks every move of Musks private jet worldwide using bots that survey the publicly available air-traffic data.

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The outlet said that Sweeney received the message from Musk that said, "Can you take this down? It is a security risk."

Sweeney replied: "Yes I can but it'll cost you a Model 3 only joking unless?"

Musk reportedly responded with: "I don't love the idea of being shot by a nutcase."

After a few exchanges back and forth, the billionaire offered Sweeney $5,000, the outlet reported.

However, Sweeney, a college student, asked for ten times more.

"Any chance to up that to $50k? It would be [a]great support in college and would possibly allow me to get a car maybe even a Model 3," Sweeney said, as addressed in Protocol.

The outlet further said that Musk said he would think about that new payment. But as of right now, Sweeney hasn't received any money.

Sweeney also explained to Musk where he was able to find the data, which took him by surprise as to how accessible it was to get.

"Air traffic control is so primitive," he said.

Sweeney said he'd take an internship instead of payment to delete the account as stated by Protocol.

Musk hasn't replied nor answered the message, but Sweeney is not offended by it.

Speaking with Indy100, Sweeney said that last week Wednesday was the last time he heard from Musk. And when asked why he thinks Musk ghosted him, he claimed: "He probably doesn’t want a part of me because he got further blocking via the FAA PIA program which doesn’t really stop my bot just makes it harder."

Earlier this month, Musk said that social media accounts tracking his travel plans are "becoming a security issue."

Check out the full Protocol report here.

Indy100 reached out to Musk via Tesla for comment.

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