$50K Or Bust! Teen Who Tracks Musk’s Jet Sticks To His Valuation

Jack Sweeney, the 19-year-old American student who tracks Musk’s aerial movement, is not budging in negotiations. He confirmed that he is sticking to his $50K price for taking down his Twitter bot account.

For those who aren’t aware, Sweeney recently surfaced on the news when Musk personally reached out to him on Twitter with an offer. The Tesla CEO offered the teenager $5K to take down ElonJet, the bot that tracks the former’s plane take-offs and landings.

Initially, Musk had sent the teenager a direct message on Twitter, saying, “Can you take this down? It is a security risk.” After a few messages, he gave Sweeney a financial proposal to shut it down as he didn’t want “crazy people” to know his whereabouts.

But, the programmer made him a counter-offer, “Any chance to up that to $50k? It would be great support (sic) in college and would possibly allow me to get a car, maybe even a Model 3.” After this, Musk said that he would think about it. However, Sweeney hasn’t heard a word from him since then.

In the latest development, Sweeney shared his conversation with Musk in a Business Insider interview. As for the offer, he said, “I’ve done a lot of work on this, and 5K is not enough.” Furthermore, he stated the price wasn’t right to fill in for “the fun I have in this, working on it.”

Reportedly, after the teen added a $50K price tag, Musk pointed out that it “doesn’t feel right to pay to shut this down.” The message came after he told Sweeney he would think about the counter-offer.

Justifying his decision to go public, he said, “He went the opposite way of me, so why wouldn’t I go the opposite way of him?”