After Elon Musk’s Twitter takeover has finally been completed after months of speculations and U-turns, the new owner of the micro-blogging site announced in a tweet on Tuesday that users will now be able to buy the Blue verification tick mark at the price of $8 per month.
Elon Musk’s plan to charge Twitter users $19.99 per month to keep their blue-tick verification badges has the Twitterati up in arms. It all started as Musk, soon after the takeover, tweeted that Twitter’s verification process “is being revamped” right now. This was followed by media reports, based on the company’s internal correspondence, suggesting that Twitter will charge users $19.99 for the Twitter Blue badge instead of the current price of $4.99 per month. While several Twitter users expressed their disgust and concern on the platform, celebrated horror writer Stephen King made his feelings clear in his own inimitable style.
King — the award-winning author known for titles such as “It”, “Pet Semetary”, “The Green Mile”, and “Rita Hayworth and Shawshank Redemption” — tweeted on October 31, “$20 a month to keep my blue check? F*** that, they should pay me. If that gets instituted, I’m gone like Enron.”
To this, Musk responded by saying, “We need to pay the bill somehow!” In a mood to negotiate, Musk floated, “How about $8?” He said that the microblogging platform can’t “rely entirely” on advertisers.
In a follow-up reply, Musk clarified that the reported price hike is still under planning. He said he would explain the rationale in “longer form” before the updated price plan is implemented.
Musk added that this is the only way to defeat bots and trolls.
Musk has now become the ‘sole director of Twitter’ after dissolving the company’s board of directors. According to a US SEC filing, all previous members of Twitter's board, including former CEO Parag Agrawal and former chairman Bret Taylor, are no longer directors "in accordance with the terms of the merger agreement". However, Musk clarified his stance, saying that the move is ‘just temporary’.