Twitterati came as soon as reports surfaced that Elon Musk wants users to pay $20 per month if they want to have verified tags or the popular ‘blue tick’. Other reports claim that Musk may charge users around $5 per month who wish to have a verified tag. The $20 fee report attracted widespread denial from the public as they claimed they would not pay for the blue check.
One Twitter user Stephen King wrote, “$20 a month to have my blue check? F**k that, they should pay me. If it gets set up, I’m gone like Enron.”
Responding to his tweet, Elon Musk said that Twitter cannot rely solely on advertisers and that users will have to pay for the service. Musk said the only way to keep the bots away is by charging users for verified handles.
Read also: ‘Heartbreaking’: Byju’s CEO Raveendran announces 2,500 job cuts to avoid role duplication
“We need to pay the bills somehow! Twitter can’t completely trust advertisers. What about $8?” Musk said. He further said in another tweet, “I will explain the logic in a long form before implementing it. This is the only way to defeat bots and trolls.”
We have to pay the bills somehow! Twitter cannot rely solely on advertisers. How about $8? — Elon Musk (@elonmusk) 1 November 2022
Journalist Casey Newton claimed that Twitter is planning to charge $4.99 per month. “Some news from inside Elon’s war room: Twitter is strongly considering paying verified users $4.99 per month to have their badges. Many questions remain,” he said.
Responding to Newton’s tweet, another Twitter user Emily G jokingly said that if each verified Twitter handle chooses to pay, Musk could earn $44B ibn 2500 a year. “There are approximately 300,000 verified Twitter accounts. If every single account chose to pay this fee, it would generate $18 million in revenue annually. That would be enough to pay the $4B purchase price in less than 2500 years. It is,” said Emily.
There are around 300k verified Twitter accounts. If every single account chose to pay this fee, it would generate approximately $18 million in revenue annually. That’s enough to pay off the $2,500 purchase price in a little less than 44 years. https://t.co/9SQElZNGoD— Emily G (@EmilyGorcenski) 30 October 2022
It may be recalled that Musk acquired Twitter for $44bn and took the company private. According to various reports, they have sacked some top executives including CEO Parag Agarwal and are now planning to lay off 25 per cent of the workforce. Twitter has about 7,500 employees.