Elon Musk offers college student $5,000 to delete Twitter bot tracking his private jet

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Billionaire Elon Musk has offered an enterprising teenager $5,000 to remove a Twitter bot tracking the movements his private plane, but the teen is seeking an internship instead.

Jack Sweeney, a 19-year-old freshman at the University of Central Florida, asked for the internship to remove the @ElonJet account after Musk admitted it 'doesn't feel right' to pay him to take it down.

Sweeney told DailyMail.com on Wednesday that he would be interested in an internship at either Tesla or SpaceX, but that he has yet to hear back from Musk on his proposal.

Musk, who has a net worth of $242 billion and is the richest person in the world, now appears to be trolling him now by dispatching his jet on flights when he is known to be elsewhere.

Sweeney, who is studying information technology, created 15 Twitter bots tracking the private planes of tech billionaires including Bill Gates and Jeff Bezos - but the account tracking Musk's jet is by far the most popular, with 88,000 followers.

Although the information Sweeney relies on is all public, his program requires sophisticated knowledge to match transponder frequencies with separately available anonymous flight plans, according to Protocol, which first reported the saga.

The popularity of the @ElonJet appears to have discomfited Musk, who last week contacted the teen to request that he remove the account to prevent 'crazy people' from tracking his movements, according to Protocol.

'I don't love the idea of being shot by a nutcase,' he told Sweeney in their DM conversation.

Sweeney's sophisticated program relies on data from multiple public sources to track flight plans that are otherwise not easily available to the public.

His system requires deep inside knowledge of the aviation system, which Sweeney gained from a father who works in the airline industry, as well as his lifelong hobby of tracking planes.

When Sweeney explained to Musk how his system works, the billionaire seemed surprised that the information was publicly accessible, commenting, 'Air traffic control is so primitive.'

The teen, star-struck at being contacted by one of his idols, was nevertheless not easily cowed, and bantered with Musk, jokingly offering to remove the account in exchange for a Tesla Model 3.

After Musk asked Sweeney how much he made from the accounts, which the teen said was no more than $20 a month, Musk offered him $5,000 to remove the bot tracking his jet.

'Any chance to up that to $50k? It would be great support in college and would possibly allow me to get a car maybe even a Model 3,' responded Sweeney.

Musk said he would think about it, but so far has not paid up.

The most recent exchange of messages between the two was last Wednesday, when Sweeney said he'd prefer an internship over payment in exchange for deleting the account.

'I understand your view, but I hope that you would see my interest because I have been developing this since I was only in high school,' Sweeney told Musk.

'Options other than remuneration like an internship would make taking it down a lot easier,' he said.

So far, Sweeney says, he has not heard back from Musk on his offer.

Instead, Musk appears to be engaging in a game of cat and mouse in an attempt to trick Sweeney's tracker.

After Musk's jet landed in Austin, Texas on Tuesday, it suddenly reappeared in Los Angeles on Wednesday afternoon.

Sweeney tweeted that Musk had used a 'blocking program' to try to prevent being tracked, adding: 'but already found the aircraft'.

The @ElonJet account then tracked Musk's jet flying from Los Angeles to Austin, Texas, where it landed at around 5.50pm ET.

At that moment, however, Musk was on a conference call with Tesla investors, with thousands listening in live from around the world.

'We track the plane not who may or may not be onboard,' noted Sweeney on his tracker account.

A spokesperson for Musk did not immediately respond to an inquiry from DailyMail.com regarding the security concerns he had over Sweeney's tracker account.

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