Elon Musk on Tuesday teased a new plan to overhaul Twitter’s verification service by charging users $8 a month to be verified, rather than granting the verified blue check mark exclusively to journalists and other public figures.
Twitter’s current lords & peasants system for who has or doesn’t have a blue checkmark is bullshit.
Power to the people! Blue for $8/month.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) November 1, 2022
Musk finalized his $44 billion Twitter acquisition on Thursday and since then has been actively reshaping the company, rapidly announcing major changes. He immediately fired Twitter’ stop executives and reportedly proposed cutting 75 percent of the workforce.
Musk has also has expressed an interest in reversing Twitter’s lifetime ban policy, which could bring back figures such as former president Donald Trump, Steve Bannon, Alex Jones, and Marjorie Taylor Greene.
“The reason I acquired Twitter is because it is important to the future of civilization to have a common digital town square, where a wide range of beliefs can be debated in a healthy manner, without resorting to violence,” Musk tweeted in an attempt to explain his motivations.
The Tesla founder moved quickly to reform the “digital town square,” dissolving the company’s board or directors and naming himself “sole director” of the company.
Among Musk’s principal criticisms of Twitter has been its unprofitable advertising model. His latest move with Twitter Blue will give perks to subscribers including “Priority in replies, mentions & search,” “Ability to post long video & audio,” and a reduced ad experience, Musk stated.
Musk couched his public pitch as a way to give “Twitter a revenue stream to reward content creators.” The tweet grabbed over 115,000 likes and nearly 30,000 retweets in under an hour.