With billionaire Elon Musk buying Twitter and reportedly firing half the company's employees over the weekend in order to avoid having to pay them vested stock option that go out on November 1, his next trick is to drive off the long-time verified users of the platform with pay-for-play.
Now that he owns Twitter, Elon Musk has given employees their first ultimatum: Meet his deadline to introduce paid verification on Twitter or pack up and leave.
The directive is to change Twitter Blue, the company’s optional, $4.99 a month subscription that unlocks additional features, into a more expensive subscription that also verifies users, according to people familiar with the matter and internal correspondence seen by The Verge. Twitter is planning to charge $19.99 for the new Twitter Blue subscription, though that price is subject to change. Employees working on the project were told on Sunday that they need to meet a deadline of November 7th to launch the feature or they will be fired.
Musk has been clear in the months leading up to his acquisition that he wanted to revamp how Twitter verifies accounts and handles bots. He is also keen on growing subscriptions to become half of the company’s overall revenue. On Sunday, he tweeted: “The whole verification process is being revamped right now.”
Platformer’s Casey Newton first reported that Twitter was considering charging for verification. A spokesperson for Twitter didn’t respond to a request for comment by press time.
Musk has said that he's not doing either and that the NY Times in particular is "spreading disinformation" on Twitter, which pretty much sums up how the last 72 hours on Twitter has gone.
And if it seems like Musk is acting like a James Bond supervillain who wants a "new world order" where he is in charge of the planet, it's because he absolutely is one.
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