Teen Tracking Elon Musk’s Jet Tells Smerconish He’s Got No Plan to Stop – Unless He Gets a Tesla, Maybe

A resourceful teenager caught the business world’s attention, and a lot of other people too, by creating a Twitter account dedicated to tracking the comings and goings of billionaire Elon Musk‘s private jet. In an interview with CNN’s Michael Smerconish on Saturday, he explained why he did it.

The Twitter account @ElonJet is run by teenager Jack Sweeney and, at the time of this posting, has about 378,000 followers. It has even inspired a cryptocurrency. It also got some direct messages from Musk to Sweeney.

Smerconish introduced the segment on Saturday by recounting a scene from the 1980s movie “Wall Street” as a way of illustrating Sweeney’s ingenuity. He then introduced Sweeney to talk about the account, the project, and its impact.

“Sweeney’s account, called Elon Jet, uses public records to map the flights. He also tracks the planes of other moguls like Bill Gates and Jeff Bezos,” Smerconish explained. “But Musk sent Sweeney a private Twitter message, asking him to stop.”

“What was the plan when you started tracking Elon Musk’s Gulfstream?” Smerconish asked.

“You know, so I was a fan of Elon and Tesla and SpaceX and everything he’s got going on, and I was just interested in where he is going,” said Sweeney. “It’s just a hobby to see what business he was up to.”

In reference to the Twitter exchanges between Sweeney and Musk about how much money it would take to get him to take down the account, Smerconish asked, “Fair to say, though, that never was the goal, ‘Hey, I’m going to track him and get him to pay me money’?”

“Yeah. No, I mean, I was a fan, I never want to like, just try to get money out of him,” said Sweeney.

Smerconish asked about Musk’s stated concerns about the account being a security risk, and Sweeney said that he’s not sure that’s entirely “truthful” and maybe Musk “just doesn’t want to be seen.”

They talked a bit about how Musk has tried to prevent the tracking, and said that the information used to track the plain is all “publicly available,” although it would require expertise to compile it in this way, then circled back to the question of being bought out.

“So what is your current demand relative to Musk? What will it make for you to go away and stop this?” Smerconish asked.

“U, still a Tesla, or fifty thousand dollars,” said Sweeney. “I mean, I’m not going to up it. There’s no need to.”

“I bet people who are watching this are making a determination as to whether this is ambition, this is in the American spirit, or whether it gets a bit obnoxious – you would tell them what?”

“I would just – it just started as a hobby, and I don’t want to let go of a hobby for something that’s not really going to change my life,” he answered. “You know, it’s something I enjoy doing and I find it really cool to do.”

“But the new Tesla that would change your life,” said Smerconish.

“Yeah, I don’t have a car right now, and it would be great to have a car and it would be a really cool car,” Sweeney answered.

Smerconish said he imagines that Musk might admire Sweeney’s efforts in part, but also might be opening himself to others who would try to exploit him for money if he gave Sweeney the car or cash, which Sweeney seemed to agree with.

After the interview, Smerconish read a comment from his Facebook page from a Tesla owner who pointed out that Tesla has been “tracking” their customers for years now, adding to Musk “How do you feel, now?”

“That is so funny,” Smerconish said with a laugh that was, no doubt, tracked by all kinds of stalking electronics. Including Mediaite, as you can see.

Watch the clip above, via CNN on YouTube.