Beautiful Virgin Islands

Sunday, Jul 26, 2026

0:00
0:00

The teen who tracks Elon Musk's jet agreed to stop monitoring Mark Cuban's flights on Twitter after the billionaire offered business advice

The teen who famously 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 about four months, Cuban and Jack Sweeney, 19, went back and forth over the account @MCubansJets, which followed several of the "Shark Tank" star's planes.

The deal between the teen and billionaire sheds light on the daily privacy concerns of public figures like Cuban and the lengths they're willing to go to limit their exposure. Last year, Meta paid nearly $27 million for security efforts and private-jet travel for the Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg.

"Are you not concerned about safety issues with tracking jets?" Cuban asked Sweeney in a direct message over Twitter in February.

"Not everyone on this platform is stable. Many can be irrational and dangerous," Cuban said in a message to Sweeney. "You tell me what you want so that I can end this risk to my family's safety."

Cuban confirmed that the messages were genuine. He said he initially reported the account on Twitter claiming impersonation, but it was taken down only for a handful of weeks.

Sweeney said he didn't think the accounts posed a major security issue as the data is already available online via public air-traffic-tracking sites like the ADS-B Exchange. He merely puts the data on Twitter via bots that scrape the websites.

"I'm open to taking down some of the accounts, but I'm not going to do it for nothing," Sweeney said.

Over the past few months, the teen has begun tracking a wide variety of aircraft 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 some work to set up but that he could now put them together in about 15 minutes.

Sweeney appeared to agree to disable @MCubansJets in the spring after Cuban offered to give him support on business endeavors. The account, which has nearly 3,000 followers, has not been deleted. But it has not shared Cuban's travel data since April 7. Sweeney said he's no longer sharing the data on Twitter but still tracking the billionaire on his
Discord account.

"By ending this you have me as a friend for life," Cuban said to Sweeney in the DM exchange. "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."

Cuban gave Sweeney his email address in exchange, but the teen said he felt disappointed by the offer. He followed up with a request to meet Cuban at a Dallas Mavericks game — the team that the billionaire bought in 2000 for about $280 million — and Cuban agreed. Though, Sweeney said the date had not 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 said.

The billionaire appeared unaware that the Twitter account had stopped sharing his flight data but said he would stand by his promise and not take any further action against Sweeney if he continued to stop tracking his travel.

"That's the deal I made. I will 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 that tracks his jets after the billionaire said he "didn't love the idea of getting shot by a nutcase." Musk blocked Sweeney on Twitter shortly after he made the counteroffer.

Sweeney said since his efforts to track Musk catapulted him into the spotlight, the public response to his work had been mixed. He said he'd gotten threats from Musk fans, but some of the people he tracks, like the billionaire Jared Isaacman, appear unbothered by the attention.
Newsletter

Related Articles

Beautiful Virgin Islands
0:00
0:00
Close
Autopsy Finds No Violence in Death of Epstein-Linked Model Scout
Indian Education Minister Resigns After Cockroach Youth Protests
California Desert Data-Centre Plan Stalls as Water and Power Disputes Mount
War, Youth Revolt and the Global Struggle for Control
War, Power and the Rising Price of Political Decisions
Badenoch Rejects Grant Shapps' Bid to Return as Conservative Candidate
BAE Chief Warns Britain Has Underestimated the Risk of War
Burnham Rules Out New Scottish Independence Referendum in First Talks With Swinney
OpenAI Sued After ChatGPT Allegedly Discouraged Emergency Care Before Near-Fatal Embolism
Viral Video Raises Questions Over Twelve-Dollar Croissants at Manhattan Bakery
Miliband Sets Climate and International Law at Centre of UK Diplomacy
US Gasoline Returns to $4 as Renewed Iran Fighting Disrupts Oil Flows
Czech Central Bank Governor Rejects Early Euro Entry and Rate-Cut Pressure
Trump Orders 50% Tariffs on Selected Canadian Imports
Pentagon Discloses Nearly 100 US Troop Injuries During Renewed Iran Fighting
Trump Readies New Tariffs as Temporary Global Levy Nears Expiry
EU Imposes Record €550 Million Digital Services Fine on AliExpress
London’s Housing Starts Collapse as Planning and Building Costs Stall Development
Charlie Sheen’s Daughter: "My Dad Didn’t Buy Me a House, My Breasts Bought It"
Vivienne Westwood Casts Cicciolina, 74, in Its New Autumn Campaign
Dejavu: Germany’s Military Expansion Reshapes Europe’s Strategic Balance With France
Naturally Conceived Identical Quadruplets Born in Rare Brisbane Delivery
Tate Brothers Fight British Extradition Bid After Miami Arrests
Burnham Reshapes Britain’s Government Around Living Costs, Devolution and Security
Jingye Demands Full Compensation After Britain illegally Nationalized British Steel
Just Another Liar or a Robin Hood? Andy Burnham Pledges Cost-of-Living Help in First Speech as UK Prime Minister
Morgan Stanley Builds a Wall Street Lead in AI Infrastructure Finance
High Prices Push Coffee Drinkers Toward Whole Beans and Home Brewing
Trump Draws Boos and Podium Scrutiny at Spain’s World Cup Triumph
Brilliant move: Péter Magyar Moves to Nominate Chess Grandmaster Judit Polgár as Hungary’s President
Spain Defeats Argentina in Extra Time to Win Second World Cup
Police Block Cockroach Janta Party’s March to Parliament as Education Protests Intensify
Current AI Seeks to Build an Open Global AI Infrastructure Outside Big Tech Control
Turkey Explores S-400 Transfer to UAE in Bid to Rejoin F-35 Program
Germany’s Economic Malaise Reopens the Sunday Shopping Debate
Singapore Considers Lower Taxes for Fund Managers as Hong Kong Intensifies Talent Contest
US Retaliates Against Iran After Two American Troops Killed in Jordan
Bank of Asia BVI Enters Court-Supervised Liquidation After Regulators Find It Insolvent
Proposed U.S.-Saudi Nuclear Pact Could Permit Limited Uranium Enrichment Under International Safeguards
Netherlands Declares Water Shortage Emergency After Drought Pushes Rivers to Historic Lows
Why Kentucky Fried Chicken Became KFC—and Why the False Explanations Persist
Iran Claims It Destroyed Bahrain’s Main Artificial Intelligence Center in Missile and Drone Strike
Ukrainian Drones Strike Wildberries Warehouses Deep Inside Russia
Brothers Andrew and Tristan Tate Who Turned "Toxic Masculinity" Into a Brand Arrested in Miami as Britain Seeks Their Extradition
Reported CIA Mission Helped Clear the UAE’s Path to Advanced US AI Chips
Artificial Intelligence Capital Fuels Markets While Governments and Regulators Face Mounting Strategic Tests
China’s Moonshot’s Kimi K3 Narrows the Gap With Anthropic Through Scale, Openness and Lower Cost
Gold and Cash Seizure Puts Indonesia’s Senior Anti-Corruption Prosecutor Under Investigation
The Ledger Will Not Trust on Faith
Trump Administration Pressures Banks to Restrict Financial Access for Undocumented Immigrants
×