The 19-year-old Sawyer Merritt famous for his Twitter account that tracks Elon Musk‘s private jet was on Friday offered a free Tesla to delete his account but rejected the offer, having rejected an offer of $5,000 (2 million naira) from the Tesla CEO.
On Twitter Friday, Scott Painter, CEO of Autonomy, a car-hire company, offered Sweeney a subscription to a Tesla Model 3 if he deleted the Musk jet-tracking account. The Wall Street Journal reported that the offer was for a three-year subscription.
Sweeney responded: “I told you I’m not interested in a subscription besides, there are numerous facts that suggest this is in conjunction with Elon.”
In an interview with The Journal on Friday, Sweeney explained why he came to his decision. “I want my own car. I don’t want to have to give it back in three years,” he said. “If I got an actual Tesla, then I would take it down.”
Sweeney did not immediately respond to Insider’s request for comment.
His jet-tracking account uses bots that monitor publicly available air traffic data.
After turning down $5,000 from Musk to delete the account, Sweeney told Insider he refused the offer because it wasn’t enough to replace the satisfaction he gets from running the account.
In his initial conversation with Musk, which occurred via Twitter direct messages in fall 2021 and was first reported by Protocol, Musk said: “Can you take this down? It is a security risk.”
Sweeney replied: “Yes I can but it’ll cost you a Model 3 only joking unless?”
Musk responded: “How about $5k for this account and generally helping make it harder for crazy people to track me?”
Sweeney said: “Sounds doable, account and all my help. Any chance to up that to $50K?” He cited college funding and told the billionaire the money could go toward buying a Tesla Model 3.
