Why Elon Musk offered a teenager $7500 to delete his Twitter account

Elon Musk reportedly offered the 19 year old US$5000 to shut down his Twitter account. Photo / 123rf

A young man from Florida reportedly rejected an offer from Elon Musk to delete his Twitter account in exchange for US$5,000 (NZ$7500).

At 19 years old, Jack Sweeney has amassed more than 291,000 followers on his Twitter account ElonJet, which uses a computerised bot to gather information about Musk's private jet and automatically tweet flight details.

Took off near Brownsville, Texas, US. pic.twitter.com/ZUDNlTNMAX

— Elon Musk's Jet (@ElonJet) February 1, 2022

In November, the account gained the Tesla and SpaceX CEO's attention and Sweeney was contacted directly by Musk through Twitter.

Musk's first message was received on November 30 and said "Can you take this down?," reported Protocol. "It's a security risk."

He then offered Sweeney $5,000 to take the account down and help stop "crazy people" from following his flights.

"I don't love the idea of being shot by a nutcase," Musk wrote.

The college freshman has developed more than 12 other flight bot accounts that track the flights of tech celebrities like Jeff Bezos and Bill Gates.

Sweeney countered with a request for $50,000, adding that he could use the money to pay for college and maybe buy a Tesla Model 3.

On January 19, Musk sent a final message that said it didn't feel right "to pay to shut this down".

In response, Sweeney wrote, "options other than remuneration like an internship would make taking it down a lot easier."

However, the SpaceX fan did give Musk some advice and recommended a blocking program that would prevent flight tracing.

Took off from Hawthorne, Elon got PIA blocking program but already found the aircraft. pic.twitter.com/nOxNUxy5y5

— Elon Musk's Jet (@ElonJet) January 26, 2022

Musk reportedly took the advice, making it harder but not impossible for Sweeney to still track and tweet his movements.

"It's just a bit more complicated," the young man said.

On his website, linked into his Twitter bio, Sweeney encourages people to "please consider donating" as he spends "a good amount of time running, keeping up and developing new features for these Twitter accounts."

Elon Musk has previously voiced concerns about his travel details being made public.

In January he said accounts dedicated to sharing information about his movements were "become a security issue."