Musk to raise Twitter Blue to $8 per month: Current checkmark system ‘bull—-‘

Elon Musk teased a plan Tuesday to charge $8 per month for Twitter’s subscription service and let users become verified with the platform’s blue checkmark as part of the deal. 

Musk called Twitter’s “current lords & Peasants system” governing who has a blue checkmark or not “bullshit” in his post about the new system he’s planning to launch.

“Power to the people! Blue for $8/month,” Musk wrote. 

He said the price will be adjusted by country “proportionate to purchasing power parity.”

Musk’s post comes after some high-profile users, including author Stephen King, pushed back over a reported plan for the company to charge $20 per month for verification. The Verge first reported on that plan.

For the $8 monthly fee, Musk said users will also get “priority in replies, mentions & search,” which he called “essential to defeat spam.”

It will additionally allow users to post long video and audio content and see half as many ads, he wrote. 

The potential rollout of the $20 monthly cost for verification and the teased subscription plan are among a number of changes that may be coming to Twitter after Musk completed his $44 billion acquisition of the company. 

In response to criticism from King, Musk said Twitter can’t rely entirely on advertisers, which have served as the company’s main source of revenue since it first launched, in order to “pay the bills.” He also said in response to the author that the plan is the “only way to defeat the bots & trolls.”