Nineteen-year-old Jack Sweeney known for tracking private jets and aircraft carrying popular figures said he stopped tracking Mark Cuban’s jets on Twitter after the billionaire reached out to him.
According to Business Insider, Cuban offered Sweeney business advice in exchange for the account being disabled over security reasons. Meanwhile, the teenager had earlier turned down a $5,000 offer by Elon must to stop tracking his jet.
In response, Sweeney disabled Cuban’s account due to safety concerns noting that the account will remain as an archive but will no longer be tracking Cuban’s Jet.
However, Sweeney had instead requested to meet Cuban at a Dallas Mavericks game, the team that the billionaire bought in 2000 for about $280 million.
What they are saying
Responding to questions of concerns about safety issues with tracking jets asked by Cuban, Sweeney told Cuban that he didn’t think the accounts posed a major security issue as the data is already available online via public air-traffic-tracking sites as he only puts the data on Twitter via bots that scrape the websites.
After some back and forth on the matter, Sweeney agreed to take down some of the accounts but said he was doing it for nothing.
“It’s not like you are gaining anything by following individual jet, and you know you are creating risk for all jets you track. By ending this, you have me as your friend for life,” Cuban told Sweeney.
“You probably have Elon as a friend for life and I am guessing that is far more valuable to you than the value of a Tesla. Someday you will start a business and you would have my help.” Cuban said proposing a takedown of his jet in exchange for helping with any business stuff the teenager could have.
In reaction, Sweeney disabled the account due to safety concerns. Noting that the account will remain as an archive, but would no longer track Cuban’s jet.
What you should know
- Sweeney is a student of the University of Florida who came into the spotlight after he refused an offer from Elon Musk to take down an account tracking his jet earlier this year.
- Musk had offered him $5,000 to remove a Twitter bot tracking the movement of his private jet.
- Sweeney started tracking a wide variety of aircrafts carrying stars, politicians and billionaires like Tom Cruise, Taylor Swift, Donald Trump, Mark Zuckerberg and others.
