Teen Tracking Elon Musk’s Jet Agrees To Stop Monitoring Mark Cuban’s Flights

It seems thatMark Cuban might have just made a new friend.

The teen made history when he turned down a $5,000 dollar offer from billionaire Elon Musk to stop tracking his private flights. However, the teen did agree to stop sharing the data for Mark Cuban’s travel history on Twitter after the 63-year-old entrepreneur and TV personality reached out to him with privacy concerns.

According to Insider, over the course of four months, Cuban and the teen – 19-year-old Jack Sweeney – went back and forth over the Twitter account @MCubanJets, which shares the travel data of the “Shark Tank” star’s planes.

In private messages that were shared with Insider, Cuban asks, “Are you not concerned about safety issues with tracking jets?”

“I just don’t think it’s that big of a concern,” Sweeney replies. “The data is already out there I’m just compiling it. I actually plan on launching a Web3 platform for aviation tracking from all of this. Users will own NFTs for aircraft they want to follow.”

Sweeney is telling the truth. That information is already available online through public air traffic-tracking sites like the ADS-B Exchange. Sweeney puts the data on Twitter through bots that scrape the website for information.

Cuban admits, “It was out there but it took a lot of work. Now any idiot on Twitter can follow you and see it.” He later added, “Not everyone on this platform is stale. Many can be irrational and dangerous. Would you agree?”

“Yeah, of course there’s always gonna be dangerous people,” Sweeney admits. “But I’m not just gonna stop for nothing which took a good amount of work.”

“How much?” Cuban asks.

“Time wise? Or like money wise?” Sweeney responds.

Cuban answers, “You tell me what you want so that I can end this risk to my family’s safety.”

Over a week later, Sweeney replies, “Hey sorry I’ve been busy. Seems like your really worried. I can take it down in the mean time. But I think we can turn this into something good.”

Over the past few months, Sweeney has branched out. Instead of just political and tech figures like President Donald Trump and Mark Zuckerberg, he has also started tracking the flights of Hollywood celebrities like Tom Cruise and Taylor Swift.

Sweeney told Insider that he’s no longer sharing Cuban’s data to Twitter, but is still tracking the billionaire’s travel plans through his Discord server.

In the private messages, Cuban says, “I have a better idea. You tell the media that you had second thoughts about doing this for personal jets because of the risk it creates for their family. Then I come out publicly and say what an amazing person you are and how appreciative I am. What do you think?”

“It’s not like you are gaining anything by following individual’s jets,” he went on. “And you know you are creating significant risk for all jets you track.”

“By ending this you have me as a friend for life,” Cuban wrote. “You probably have Elon as a friend for life. And I’m guessing that is far more valuable to you than the value of a Tesla. Some day you may start a business and you would have my help.”

“I’ll do it for yours sure!” Sweeney later replies.

“Deal,” Cuban replies. “You take down my jets and I’ll help you with any business stuff you have going on.” After some back and forth, Cuban decides, “Actually, it may be better if you just delete it with no comment. There are so many crazies out there. They might want to do something. In return. Here is my email address.”

Although Cuban gave Sweeney his email address, he told Insider that he still felt “disappointed by the offer.” He requested to meet Cuban at a Dallas Maverick’s game, and Cuban supposedly agreed, but no date has yet been set.

“He said a lot of stuff to try and get me to take it down, but he didn't really put in the effort,” Sweeney told the publication.

Cuban told Insider that he will stand by his word and not take further action against Sweeney if he stops tracking his whereabouts.

“That's the deal I made, I will answer his business questions,” Cuban said.

Earlier this year, Sweeney had asked Musk for $50,000 dollars or a Tesla after the SpaceX founder asked him to stop tracking the jets because he “didn’t love the idea of getting shot by a nutcase.” Musk blocked the teen on Twitter shortly after he made the counter offer.