San Francisco: Tesla CEO Elon Musk has offered an enterprising teenager $5,000 to remove a Twitter bot tracking the movements of his private plane.
The billionaire reached out to the 19-year-old, Jack Sweeney, last November to express concern about a Twitter account he runs called @ElonJet, which provides regular updates on flights of well-known figures by using publicly available data.
Musk offered Jack $5,000 (Rs 3.75 lakhs) to stop tweeting about his jets. However, Jack turned down Musk’s offer and instead demanded $50,000 (Rs 37.55 lakhs), saying that the amount would cover his college fees and also help him buy a Tesla car, according to Protocol.
Musk said he would think about it, but so far has not paid up.
The negotiation between Musk and Sweeney reportedly happened over several direct messages on Twitter.
The most recent exchange of messages between the two was on January 26, when Sweeney said he would 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.
So far, Sweeney said that he has not heard back from Musk on his offer.