Science & Tech
Teen rejects Elon Musk’s $5,000 offer to shut down jet-tracking bot [Video]
- Jack Sweeney, 19, has been known to track the private jet movements of several billionaires, such as Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, and Bill Gates.
- He recently went viral after Musk offered him $5,000 to take down the account.
- The teen has now started selling merchandise that shows Musk smoking weed, as a backup to fund his ventures.
Jack Sweeney, the teen whose Twitter account went viral for tracking the private jet movements of Elon Musk, has started a business to help fund his project.
Sweeney’s business, called Ground Control, sells merchandise like stickers, hoodies, and T-shirts that show Musk smoking weed during his 2018 appearance on the podcast “The Joe Rogan Experience.”
In addition to Musk’s photo, the products also feature the text, “I know how high Elon is,” along with the @ElonJet Twitter handle and a picture of Musk’s jet.
The teen had created the LLC “a while back” but there hasn’t been a lot of sales so far. Still, he told Insider that he has “somewhat decent donations and AdSense,” Google’s website monetization program.
Sweeney launched the business to help “monetize” his venture, he told The Guardian on Wednesday. This will serve as a backup source of funds to help him continue his jet-tracking operation in case his Twitter account gets taken down.
Last month, Protocol reported that Musk had offered Sweeney $5,000 to shut down his account. The Tesla and SpaceX CEO stated at the time that such social media accounts were “becoming a security issue.”
According to the teen, he countered with $50,000, which was considered by Musk, but he ultimately considered that it didn’t “feel right.”
Sweeney’s recent fame also bagged him a job offer to be part of the development team of private charter flight company Stratos Jet Charters. CEO Joel Thomas credited the teen’s “creativity” in developing his accounts.
Musk has since blocked all social media accounts linked to Sweeney, who also tracks the private jet movements of other billionaires such as Bill Gates and Jeff Bezos.
Source: Insider
ox
February 6, 2022 at 8:07 pm
If I were Musk the only other alternative is to take this teen to court, and have a judge order this teen to cease and desist. Make this teens parents liable for attorney’s fees. No one likes to have their whereabouts tracked.
John G
February 9, 2022 at 2:36 am
The big money guys push their apps that track ordinary people, but when an ordinary person starts tracking them, they scream “Bloody murder”.
Google, Facebook, Twitter, Waze, and a whole host of other apps track your movements and then tailor adds, in their apps, based on your location. If you stop by a car dealership to get your car serviced on Monday, then by Friday, those companies will have fed you hundreds of ads for new cars. Some companies will even promise client companies that they will send texts to your email address, advertising their products… for a price.
We are all tracked almost all the time. So it’s good that some of the people who are raking in the dough for tracking us, are now learning how we feel about being tracked, since they are themselves, now being tracked. When I was growing up, I had some country relatives who had a saying that expresses the essence of this issue. “What’s good for the goose, is good for the gander.” I personally like, “What goes around, comes around.” I just love stories like this, where people who think they are better than everyone else, are slapped with a hard dose of reality and forced to accept that the same rules they have pushed on everyone else, applies to them, too. Sadly, there is one group that thinks they are above the rules they make for others, who in most cases, can get away with ignoring their own rules and that’s members of Congress.