Elon Musk Announces USD 8 Monthly Charge For Verified Twitter Accounts

Elon Musk Announces USD 8 Monthly Charge For Verified Twitter Accounts

Tesla, SpaceX, and Twitter Chief Elon Musk have decided to charge users of the social media platform USD 8 per month for a blue checkmark. "This will also give Twitter a revenue stream to reward content creators," Musk explained, adding that "it is the only way to defeat the bots and trolls." However, many Twitter users are unhappy about the announced charge.

Twitter to Charge USD 8 per Month for Account Verification

Tesla CEO and Twitter Chief Elon Musk announced on Tuesday that he plans to charge USD 8 per month for Twitter users to have a blue verification checkmark that is currently free. His announcement came after several days of discussion on Twitter following his acquisition of the social media platform.

In a follow-up tweet, he explained that the price will be "adjusted by country proportionate to purchasing power parity."

Musk further said that for USD 8 a month, users will also get "priority in replies, mentions, and search, which is essential to defeating spam or scam, the ability to post long video and audio, half as many ads," and "paywall bypass for publishers willing to work with us."

The new Twitter chief added:

"This will also give Twitter a revenue stream to reward content creators."

Some people said they welcomed the idea of Twitter paying content creators. One user wrote, "Creator payments are huge to incentivize content creation. Love this idea. Creators need to make a living!"

Before he settled on the USD 8-a-month charge, Musk considered charging USD 20 per month. However, many Twitter users reacted negatively to the idea. Famous fiction author Stephen King said he would leave the platform if the charge gets instituted. Musk replied, explaining that Twitter cannot rely entirely on advertisers and will need to pay the bills somehow. He also stressed that "it is the only way to defeat the bots and trolls."

The pro-bitcoin CEO of Microstrategy, Michael Saylor, commented on Musk’s idea of charging USD 8 a month, tweeting: "The bots won’t like this." The Tesla CEO replied:

"Yes, this will destroy the bots. If a paid blue account engages in spam or scams, that account will be suspended. Essentially, this raises the cost of crime on Twitter by several orders of magnitude."

The current Twitter verification process is free, but the account must be "authentic, notable, and active" to receive a blue checkmark, according to the company’s website as of Nov. 1.

Nonetheless, some people are unhappy about the USD 8 per month charge. "USD 8 for something that isn’t even ad-free is so funny," one user wrote. Another explained that his number one rule on the internet that has "never been successfully broken is to charge for something that was previously free." A third user wrote, "Soon it’s going to be cool to not have the checkmark."

Philip Lewis, a senior front page editor at the Huffington Post, opined:

"I think this is a fundamental misunderstanding of how verification is supposed to work. A blue check has been perceived as a status symbol for some time when in reality it’s just supposed to tell you if a page is authentic or not."