Since June of 2020, Jack Sweeney has been programming bots to track and post Elon Musk’s whereabouts on a Twitter account. The account recently became popular once Musk offered the teenager $5,000 to shut down the account. According to New York Times, “Mr. Sweeney made a counteroffer to Mr. Musk, according to the screenshots of the exchange, saying that he would abandon the account if Mr. Musk upped the ante to $50,000. He said that he would also accept a Tesla Model 3, an electric car that costs more than $38,000, adding that he was joking.”

Jack Sweeney, a freshman at the University of Central Florida, Orlando, is majoring in IT. Explaining how he meant no harm, Sweeney says, “I created it because I am really interested in Elon Musk, and Tesla, and Spacex, and it would be interesting to see where he goes or what business he’s up to.” Sweeney then explains how Elon Musk blocked Mr. Sweeney after saying “I don’t think it is right to pay to take this down.” A video of Jack Sweeney explaining the situation can be found on The Guardian.

(Picture of Elon Musk found on abc)

With over 279K followers, Sweeney explains how he “asked for 50 grand because it would be nice to help for college, and then he also thought it’d be cool if he could buy a tesla, you know, like a model 3 or something.” in the video.

Sweeney has made over $500 on this project from ads and donations. After understanding and agreeing with Musk’s concern about “ not loving the idea of being shot by a nutcase,” Sweeney realizes that Musk only  travels using “fixed-based operators at small airports or private terminals within larger airports. In other words, he’s not traversing through crowded gates at LAX before hopping on a jet.” After making up his mind, Jack Sweeney ends it by saying, “I think the concerns are valid, but I’ve seen him go to BOA Steakhouse in Los Angeles. There are more people there than at the airports he uses.” (Information above found on CNBC)