Report: Elon Musk wants to charge $20 for Twitter verified status

Now, that he is at the helm Twitter, Elon Musk wants to charge users to keep the “blue check” denoting verified status. According to a report in The Verge ., Elon Musk plans to charge $20 a month for Twitter Blue.

The Verge said that Musk plans to charge $20 a month for Twitter Blue, a service that currently costs $5 monthly, and expand its features to include verifying users’ identity.

Currently verified users would have 90 days to sign up for the subscription or lose their blue check mark, the Verge reported, citing unnamed sources and internal correspondence.

Twitter didn’t immediately respond to a request to comment.

A blue Checkmark, which signifies that the person behind a profile are who they claim to be, has become a highly sought-after marker of status on Twitter. This popular social messaging platform is used by celebrities, journalists, and politicians.

” The whole verification process is being overhauled right now,” Musk tweeted Sunday.

Musk has previously outlined bold ambitions for the platform, which has struggled to broaden its user base. His proposals include boosting subscriptions to half of the company’s revenue and growing the service to 900 million users in five years, according to reports by the New York Times. According to Twitter’s most recent earnings report, revenue from Twitter Blue (which allows users to edit tweets and remove advertising) makes up less that 8% of the company.

Stephen King: “They should pay me”

Since Musk officially took over as Twitter’s boss on Friday, he has made a number of changes, including firing the CEO and other top executives and changing the way the site’s homepage looks for users who aren’t logged in. He plans to cut as much as three-quarters of Twitter’s workforce, the Washington Post has reported.

But revamping his $44 billion purchase into a growing and attractive product will be an uphill battle, social media experts say.

Wedbush analyst Dan Ives told MoneyWatch that Musk’s purchase comes “at the worst possible time,” as social media and the advertising that funds it sees a “massive” slowdown. Meanwhile, some celebrity users have announced they are quitting the platform now that Elon owns it.

In response to the potential $20 monthly charge for verification status, horror master Stephen King tweeted an expletive: “$20 a month to keep my blue check? They should pay me. If they do that, I’m gone like Enron. “

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• Elon Musk
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