Last Updated: February 11, 2024, 16:47 IST
San Francisco, California, USA
Elon Musk began trying to acquire Twitter after its former CEO Parag Agrawal denied his request to shut down a handle @ElonJet. (File Photo)
The disclosure was penned in a book, written by Bloomberg’s Kurt Wagner, titled ‘Battle for the Bird’
In a big revelation regarding Tesla CEO Elon Musk’s much-talked-about Twitter (Now X) acquisition, it has come to light that Musk began trying to acquire the micro-blogging platform after its former CEO Parag Agrawal denied his request to shut down a handle that was tracking the location of the billionaire’s private jet, @ElonJet.
The disclosure was penned in a book, written by Bloomberg’s Kurt Wagner, titled ‘Battle for the Bird.’ Interestingly, the information came out after the first excerpt of the book was published by Wagner’s employer. The book is due to be released on February 20.
As per the published excerpt of the book, Elon Musk first contacted Parag Agrawal in January 2022 regarding the account — @ElonJet, run by American programmer Jack Sweeney, a student at the University of Central Florida.
Notably, Sweeney through multiple accounts also tracks down information of the private jet travel of several prominent figures, including ex-US President Donald Trump, popular singer Taylor Swift, Microsoft’s Bill Gates, Amazon’s Jeff Bezos, among others. Swift has even threatened to sue the college student.
It was after Parag Agrawal denied the Tesla CEO’s request led remove the account handled by Swwney, Musk started buying Twitter shares, which led him to have conversations with the platform’s co-founder Jack Dorsey.
Musk initially sought a seat on the board of directors before agreeing to buy the social media platform outright. He then paid a whopping sum of $44 billion to acquire Twitter in October 2022.
Days after his Twitter acquisition, Musk sacked Agarwal, the first Indian-origin CEO of the tech giant, and others.
@ElonJet handle was also taken down from Twitter after Musk completed the deal with the micro-blogging platform. However, Sweeney still posts travel data of Musk’s plane on other social networking sites.
