I guess he wasn't open to negotiations because he offered a teenager $5,000 to stop tracking his private jet.
Musk doesn’t want his private jet tracked
Musk has a private jet. The registration code for the G650ER is N628TS. Musk tried to pay a teen to stop publicly tracking his plane.
Jack Sweeney, a college student, has been running a Twitter account with the handle "ElonJet" since June 2020. This account posted the location of Musk's jet using public data. The process of tracking Musk's jet requires a bit of work, but it is still visible with ADS-B data.
In late 2021, Musk sent a direct message to the teen on the social media site, and in part the conversation went like this:
Musk: “Ok, how about $5k for this account and generally helipng make it slightly harder for crazy people to track me?”
Sweeney: “Sounds doable, account and all my help. 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. Would love to help you out.”
Musk stopped responding after that, so no deal was reached, and Musk's jet is still being tracked. The teen said he eventually wants to work for one of Musk's companies, so I guess that's not going well based on the lack of a deal and him continuing to do the tracking service.
Musk has made it clear that he doesn't like having his travel tracked. The billionaire wasn't happy when an investor posted about a planned flight for Musk, he said it was becoming a security issue.
Yeah, unfortunately this is becoming a security issue
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) January 18, 2022
I’m not sure there’s a solution here?
There are a few thoughts based on this situation.
It’s funny that Musk was willing to pay $5K but not $50K, both of which are the equivalent of a fraction of a cent for most of us; or maybe he just lost focus and forgot about this
The reality is that even if he paid this teen to take down the account, someone could have easily replicated this
While I can appreciate that Musk has safety concerns, at the end of the day there’s only so much privacy you can expect as a very public figure who is constantly moving around
With Musk’s $200+ billion, I think he could probably afford a proper security detail that rivals the Secret Service, which would be his best bet for staying safe
If somebody actually had bad intentions based on Musk’s travel plans, I think they’d be able to figure out his whereabouts without the help of this Twitter account
Bottom line
The location of Musk's private jet has been tracked by a Twitter account for over a year. Musk has security concerns about this, which I suppose is understandable, but at the same time there is only so much that can be done to protect public data.
Musk was willing to pay $5K for the account to be shut down. Musk was silent when the teen tried to negotiate $50K.
Where should the line be drawn when it comes to flight data privacy?
