Elon Musk to sell verified status for $8 a month because Twitter has to pay the bills

Elon Musk officially acquired Twitter on October 27. Musk on Tuesday announced a revamped version of Twitter Blue where people will get the verified status for $8 per month in the US with a few additional perks. He announced this via a tweet and mentioned that the price will be “adjusted by country proportionate to purchasing power parity.”

Hours before making this announcement, Musk in a response to acclaimed author Stephen King said Twitter apparently needs to charge users for the blue verification badge to pay its bills.

Apart from this, Musk also announced the breakup of the service by saying “Twitter’s current lords and peasants’ system for those who has or doesn’t have a blue checkmark is bullshit.”

He further added that the service will provide additional perks including priority in replies, mentions and searches (Musk argues this will help in cutting down on spam) and the option to post long videos and audio. Twitter will also show subscribers half as many ads as non-paying users. Furthermore, Twitter under Musk will also offer a paywall bypass for publishers willing to work with the company.

Prior to this announcement, the Twitter Blue subscription, which is not related to the verified check mark was very different. It costs $ 4.99 (roughly Rs 412) and it provides its users with services like, reading ad-free articles, undo or edit tweets (in Australia, Canada and New Zealand), the option to customise your navigation bar and setting an NFT as a profile picture.

Elon Musk has not mentioned the exact date when all of this will be implemented, until then the old Twitter Blue system will follow.

Apart from this development, it was recently reported that Twitter might charge its users $20 (roughly Rs 1,654) per month starting November 7 for the verification button. Even the employees were instructed to start working on this or they will have to face the consequences.

Speaking of employees, Elon Musk recently acquired Twitter. Post this, he first former CEO Parag Agrawal, head of legal, policy and trust, Vijaya Gadde, chief financial officer Ned Segal and Twitter’s general counsel, Sean Edgett.