Current Events > Elon Musk offers 5K to shut down twitter account that tracks his flights.

(+) Yeah! (+)

Tesla CEO Elon Musk offered $5,000 to a 19-year-old to shut down a Twitter account that tracks his private flights, the teenager told Protocol.
Jack Sweeney runs 15 flight-tracking accounts using a bot he created that automatically posts when a celebritys flight leaves or lands at an airport.
Sweeneys account tracking Musks flights has the most followers, with more than 97,000, and its popularity led Musk to send a direct message to Sweeney.

I dont love the idea of being shot by a nutcase, Musk said in the message, offering $5,000 for Sweeney to take it down, according to Protocol.

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, Sweeney responded back.

https://thehill.com/policy/technology/591708-elon-musk-offered-teen-5k-to-shut-down-twitter-account-tracking-his-private

I believe hedge funds pay money for this sort of stuff to predict markets.

50k?

Dude's a billionaire. Make him drop a cool 5 million at bare minimum.

That 19 year old is a POS.

If the guy wanted privacy he'd either fly publicly or need to give up his ill gotten fortune.

Elon has a scary amount of simps who'd PAY 5k to suck HIS dick.

wait so how does this work

are private flight numbers public information?

It's publicly available data, which is what the bot acquires.

Umbreon posted...

50k?
Dude's a billionaire. Make him drop a cool 5 million at bare minimum.

Get that greedy and if he's petty enough, he'll could waste a couple hundred Gs to put together a team of lawyers to bring you pain and misery in court.

BlackBlueButts posted...

It's publicly available data, which is what the bot acquires.

yeah so there really isnt anything he can do to stop this

Twitter has been on a banning spree of these kinds of accounts.

$5000 lol

Might as well offer him a shiny nickel

How is someones flight info public

If this is public info, then he's just shown people a way that they can make easy money with a simple bot.

What a cheapass

[LFAQs-redacted-quote]

Yeah but how do they know what planes hes getting on

unless hes got a private jet or something in which case yeah, but still creepy and should be criminalised since its no different from stalking

Sad_Face posted...

Get that greedy and if he's petty enough, he'll could waste a couple hundred Gs to put together a team of lawyers to bring you pain and misery in court.

Pfft, kids a college student. The fuck Elon is going to do that student debt hasn't already?

Umbreon posted...

Pfft, kids a college student. The fuck Elon is going to do that student debt hasn't already?

He could date the student. That's the far worse outcome.

[LFAQs-redacted-quote]

Nah man, Elon flies coach.

On Delta.

gunplagirl posted...

He could date the student. That's the far worse outcome.

Okay, maybe there is a threat after all.

Fucking lmao. The gumption of this kid is amazing.

MJOLNRVII posted...

That 19 year old is a POS.

I'd agree with you if Elon Musk didn't spend every waking moment trying to get attention. This is a guy who tries to sway public opinion on political policy, and he unabashedly targets innocent people with slanderous claims if he perceives them as standing in his way. Dude is legitimately a billionaire who tries to ruin your average Joe because he gets his feelings hurt.

Remember when he said that the US should be allowed to fund a coup in Venezuela, saying "the US should be able to coup anywhere it wants"? Remember when that Brazilian children's soccer team was trapped in a cave, he made a big song and dance about providing technology to save them, and the man leading the rescue efforts rejected his shitty attention-grabbing antics which led to Elon Musk calling him a pedophile? Have you seen what Elon Musk has done with his account to fuck with cryptocurrency prices?

People write bots on Twitter all the time. There's one as a part of a project called Politiwoops that tracks politicians, and when they delete a tweet, the bot reposts that tweet and hosts it on an external website with info about when it was made and when it was deleted. People do it on other platforms to repost content.

I can understand why Elon Musk is upset about having his flights tracked by this random-ass kid. I sure wouldn't want my movement to be surveilled to that degree. But there are a couple reasons why I'm not particularly sympathetic towards him in particular, and I think it's funny that this kid is asking for more than the simple amount of hush money initially offered. Kid has brass balls, and Elon Musk is a little bitch. As far as I'm concerned, this is really funny.

Dude shouldn't have gone to the press and just demanded an absurd amount of money. Then go to the press.

Could have gotten 100k from him, but i doubt Musk will give him anything now because he has very thin skin. The negative image is probably too much for him and is going to pretend like it doesn't actually bother him that much.

MJOLNRVII posted...

That 19 year old is a POS.

Lol, don't let him fool you. Musk is WAY older then 19.

he could slum it like the rest of us on a regular ass plane and this wouldn't be an issue. downside to flying everywhere in a private plane is you've got to write up a flight plan and that is publicly available, on a regular ass 747 with 100+ other people he'd not have that issue.

plus hey, he'd be doing a whole lot to help the environment, flying is a major greenhouse gas emitter, and a private plane is way less efficient then a jumbo jet.

https://twitter.com/elonjet?lang=en

Still going.

Only Area 51 planes don't have the id

honestly, the fact that he wants that account taken down is enough evidence that it should probably exist

$5K what a cheapass

Kid asked for 50k and an internship, musk hasn't responded.

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/user_image/3/5/3/AAd2inAAC3MR.png

The kid asked for an internship? Lmao what a dummy.

I would have never known about this Twitter account if Elon didnt try to buy the kids silence for an insultingly low amount. (compared to Elons net worth) The Streisand effect strikes again.

Yep.

This is why we dont pay terrorists. Itll spawn another one

He DMs hoping itll be enough but knows he can go public. Then if he does go public, he banks on people thinking its shameful and shut it down

Meta Elon

I mean, it's problematic and if Musk is ever attacked following a flight, authorities should consider prosecuting the teen under the same considerations people have gotten in trouble for when directing somebody to a person's address

It's publicly available information.

BlackBlueButts posted...

It's publicly available information.

This. You can't cry about people broadcasting information that's in the public domain.

[LFAQs-redacted-quote]

I think he's also open to expanding it to other billionaires. Wall Street and hedge funds would pay a lot because of how these rich people affect stocks.

BlackBlueButts posted...

It's publicly available information.

Peoples' home addresses are also publicly available information, yet you can get in trouble for drawing attention to them.

There's a LOT of public information that can get you in trouble for bringing too much attention to it.

charey posted...

I would have never known about this Twitter account if Elon didnt try to buy the kids silence for an insultingly low amount. (compared to Elons net worth) The Streisand effect strikes again.

First, that's a lot of money for what he wants. Second, Elon Musk frequently has to BORROW money to pay bills because he's cash-poor, which is why his net worth is deceptive.

[LFAQs-redacted-quote]


It's a matter of set it and forget it, and then only find it when going through your old email addresses... and then use it when your much older account, more karma-riffic account is in purg because some troll went on a mass-marking spree leading to a slew of moderations all at once, even though some of the posts in question are old.

Hardly the first time. I had a guy mass-mark months-old posts after a rules change where older posts were against something in the new TOS. It's a regular thing.