- Jack Sweeney said he stopped following Mark Cuban’s jets on Twitter after Cuban reached out.
- The billionaire offered the teenager business advice in exchange for deactivating the account.
- Sweeney made headlines this year after refusing an offer from Elon Musk to remove an account.
The teenager who turned down a $5,000 offer to stop tracking Elon Musk’s private jet said he stopped sharing data on Mark Cuban’s travel history on Twitter after the billionaire reached out with privacy concerns.
Over the course of four months, Cuban and Jack Sweeney, 19, went back and forth over the account @MCubansJetswhich followed some of the Shark Tank star’s flights.
The settlement between the teenager and the billionaire sheds light on the daily privacy concerns of public figures like Cuban and the lengths they are willing to go to limit their exposure. Last year, Meta paid about $27 million for security efforts and private jet travel for Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg.
“Aren’t you concerned about safety issues with tracking planes?” Cuban asked Sweeney in a direct message on Twitter in February, which was shared with Insider.
“Not everyone on this platform is sustainable. Many can be irrational and dangerous,” Cuban said in a message to Sweeney. “Tell me what you want so that I can put an end to this risk to the safety of my family.”
Cuban confirmed to Insider that the messages were real. He told Insider that he initially reported the account to Twitter for impersonation, but it was only taken down within a few weeks.
Courtesy of Jack Sweeney
Sweeney told Insider he didn’t think the accounts posed a major security problem since the data is already available online through public air traffic tracking sites like the ADS-B Exchange. It simply puts the data on Twitter through web-scraping bots.
“I’m open to removing some of the accounts, but I won’t do it for nothing,” Sweeney told Insider.
Over the past few months, the teenager has begun tracking a wide variety of planes carrying stars like Tom Cruise and Taylor Swift and political and tech figures like former president Donald Trump and Zuckerberg. Sweeney said the accounts took a bit of work to set up, but he could now put them together in about 15 minutes.
Sweeney appeared to agree to shut down @MCubansJets in spring after Cuban offered him support in business endeavors. The account, which has nearly 3,000 followers, has not been deleted. But there isn’t common Cuban’s travel records as of April 7. Sweeney told Insider that he is no longer sharing the data on Twitter, but is still following the billionaire on his Discord account.
“Ending this, you have me as a friend for life,” Cuban told Sweeney in the DM exchange. “You probably have Elon as a friend for life and I think that’s worth a lot more to you than the value of a Tesla. One day you can start a business and you’ll have my help.”
Courtesy of Jack Sweeney
Cuban gave Sweeney his email address in return, but the teenager told Insider he felt let down by the offer. He followed up with a request to meet Cuban at a Dallas Mavericks game — the team the billionaire bought in 2000 for an estimated $280 million — and Cuban agreed. However, Sweeney said no date has been set.
“He said a lot of things to try to get me to take it off, but he didn’t make an effort,” Sweeney said.
Courtesy of Jack Sweeney
When The Insider contacted him, the billionaire appeared to be unaware that the Twitter account had stopped sharing his flight data, but said he would stand by his promise and take no further action against Sweeney. if he continued to stop following his journey.
“That’s the deal I made. I’ll answer his business questions,” Cuban said.
Earlier this year, Sweeney asked Musk for $50,000 or a Tesla in exchange for taking down the account tracking his jets after the billionaire said he “didn’t like the idea of being shot out of a nutcase.” Musk blocked Sweeney on Twitter shortly after he made the counteroffer.
Sweeney said that after his efforts to track down Musk catapulted him into the spotlight, public reaction to his work was mixed. He said he has received threats from Musk’s fans, but some of the people he tracks, like billionaire Jared Isaacman, seem unfazed by the attention.
