In the last week of January, Jack Sweeney gained internet fame when his Twitter bot story was published on the website Protocol. Jack Sweeney, aged 19, is a college student who works part-time at UberJets. Sweeney created a bot that tracks Elon Musk’s private jet. Musk’s private jet’s whereabouts can be accessed by anyone via Sweeney’s Twitter page @ElonJet. [1] The tracker bot sends out tweets when Musk’s jet lands or takes off.
Jack had created 15 other tracking bots for mainly tech CEOs like Jeff Bezos and Bill Gates. He programmed his bots to parse the air traffic data and launch a tweet each time a selected airplane takes off or lands However, none of his creations performed as well as @ElonJet. The Twitter page has more than 275k people following. Sweeney created ElonJet in 2020 as his lockdown project. [2]
Elon Musk Reached Out To Jack Sweeney
The popularity of Sweeney’s Twitter bot reached Elon Musk. Last fall, Elon Musk messaged Sweeney on Twitter at 12:33 am and asked him to take the page down as it was a security hazard. Musk said that the idea of getting shot by a lunatic did not excite him.
Sweeney replied a good 7 hours later, informing Musk that it would cost him. He asked Sweeney how he was able to track his jet, and Sweeney explained it to him. Musk was surprised at how easy it was to access air traffic information and called air security ‘primitive.’ Musk inquired how much he earned via Twitter, and Sweeney said $20 a month.
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Elon Musk’s $5000 Offer Rejected By Sweeney
Musk offered to pay $5000 to Sweeney. Musk said that he did not feel right paying money to shut down Sweeney’s project. Sweeney asked Musk if he could increase the offer to $50k. He explained that he would put the money towards his college fees and a Tesla Model 3. Musk said that he would contemplate the offer and did not reply further.
Sweeney shared the screenshots of their conversation online.
Being ghosted by Musk does not bother Sweeney at all. He explained that ElonJet had helped him learn to code and to get a part-time job at UberJets. Sweeney declared that he was an Elon Musk fan and the fact that Elon Musk DMed him was a dream come true. His project helped him gain followers and popularity.
However, Jack Sweeney decided to go public with their conversation because Musk lost interest in striking a deal with him. He explained that Musk went opposite to his way so, why shouldn’t he do the same?
Musk had reportedly used the advice Sweeney gave him. He implemented technical tools to make his private jet harder to track. Sweeney’s tracking bots have not created any dangerous situations yet. At least, that is what Sweeney claims.
Musk tweeted earlier this month discussing the risk of the tracker bot. Musk’s concern for safety is valid as the paparazzi and fans often cross the line. Protocol contacted SpaceX’s media team to confirm if there had been any attacks but was left unanswered. Last year Musk dissolved the Tesla PR team.
Airline Loophole Exploited By A College Kid
Sweeney’s bots collect FAA information when available online. FAA tracks all planes and contains data about their journey and timings. However, many celebrities’ planes, including Musk’s jet, are on the block list of LADD. It hides the identifying information from the data.
In cases like these, Sweeney utilizes data from the planes’ ADS-B transponder, which shows an aircraft’s real-time location on the ADS-B Exchange. [3] Analyzing this knowledge is like a logic riddle. Jack Sweeney’s bots utilize an aircraft’s altitude, added with the time when the data was obtained, to compute when it will take off or land. Then the bots cross-reference longitude and latitude with an airport’s database to specify where the aircraft will take off and land. The FAA information in an anonymized form is completely public. It can be utilized to track nearly all private aircraft.
It is an unexploited loophole in high-profile safety that is only known to the airline industry workers. The loophole requires air industry-related knowledge to know that the data was available to the public and how to analyze the data. Sweeney revealed that his father works in the aviation industry and ever since he was a child he has been tracking planes. Like most children, he would look up at planes and try to identify the type of plane and check if he was correct on online tracker apps.
A couple of weeks ago, Sweeney texted Musk informing him of his new offer. He said that he would like an internship at Musk’s company in exchange for deleting ElonJet. The message has not been viewed by Musk. Sweeney remains unfazed and believes that his DM has not been opened because Musk is in Hawaii, taking a vacation.
Keep Reading: Elon Musk Says Tesla Will Release Humanoid Robots Next Year
Sources
- “Teen wants $50,000 to stop tracking Elon Musk’s private jet.” Engaget. I. Bonifacic. January 30, 2022.
- “Teen who turned down $5,000 from Elon Musk to shut down a Twitter account tracking the billionaire’s jet says he gets too much work satisfaction to settle for less than $50,000.” Business Insider. Isobel Asher Hamilton. January 30, 2022.
- “A 19-year-old built a flight-tracking Twitter bot. Elon Musk tried to pay him to stop.” Protocol. Veronica Irwin. January 26, 2022.