Musk tells people upset about Twitter verification fee to ‘continue complaining’
Newly minted Twitter CEO Elon Musk is standing by his plan to have users pay a monthly subscription fee for a verification badge, telling upset users to “keep complaining.”
“To all complainers, please continue complaining, but it will cost $8,” Musk tweeted late Tuesday, adding a joke from “Monty Python” in his thread about the recent complaints from users.
“Totally stole idea of charging for insults & arguments from Monty Python tbh,” he added.
Musk’s push to raise the price for the platform’s subscription service, Twitter Blue, from $5 to $8 per month and require it for verification has sparked backlash among users, who have criticized the plan after initial reports Musk was considering charging $20 per month.
“$20 a month to keep my blue check? F— that, they should pay me,” author Stephen King wrote in a tweet. “If that gets instituted, I’m gone like Enron.”
In response, Musk told King that the social media platform cannot survive solely on advertisers, noting the monthly subscription initiative “is the only way to defeat the bots & trolls” on the platform.
“We need to pay the bills somehow! Twitter cannot rely entirely on advertisers,” Musk wrote. “How about $8?”
Celebrities, prominent political figures, journalists, athletes, content creators and major companies on Twitter can receive a blue checkmark as part of the platform’s old regime, though will need to pay to have the verified status.
Musk, 51, officially purchased Twitter last week, after a six-month legal battle over his $44 billion acquisition of the social media platform.
After completing his acquisition, Musk promptly fired top executives, including CEO Parag Agrawal, chief financial officer Ned Segal, and chief legal counsel Vijaya Gadde.
Musk, the Tesla and SpaceX CEO, said that in addition to other changes he plans to lift lifetime bans on individuals including former President Trump, who has created his own social media alternative to Twitter, Truth Social. Trump, however, has said he intends to stay on his own platform.