Twitter needs funding, so Elon Musk wants businesses and brands to pay him $1,000 monthly in exchange for being marked as verified on his social network. According to social media expert Matt Navarra, who tweeted the information on Friday, Twitter is asking organisations to pay $1,000 per month, plus an additional $50 per month for each affiliated sub-account, to maintain the gold check-mark verification badges that the company introduced in December in place of the blue check-marks for businesses. The Information, a technology news website, corroborated the information and added that the pricing “is being finalised and could still change.”
Twitter representatives did not answer an inquiry for comment.
The new price for the gold check-mark status is part of the Twitter Blue for Business service, which the company described in December as “a new way for businesses and their affiliates to verify and distinguish themselves on Twitter.” Customers of Twitter Blue for Business can link affiliated people, companies, brands, and even “movie characters” under their main accounts. When done, the parent company’s profile picture will appear next to the customer’s blue or gold checkmark.
Additionally, Twitter updated its square profile images for businesses and brands and added grey checkmarks to official accounts. According to Musk, Twitter will stop using all old verified checkmarks within the next six months, limiting verified status ultimately to paying individual and business users. He tweeted on December 12 that “the way in which [certified check-marks] were distributed was corrupt and stupid.” Musk intends to increase subscription revenue to pay off the $12.5 billion debt he accrued when completing the $44 billion acquisition of Twitter. After Musk’s erratic takeover in late October, many advertisers stopped spending on Twitter.
Elon Musk wasn’t responsible for losses suffered by Tesla shareholders
Last month, Twitter announced collaborations with two brand-safety analytics providers, offering new tools to ensure ads-adjacent tweets aren’t insulting to woo back marketers who have abandoned the platform.
Meanwhile, Musk revealed on Friday that starting on February 3, Twitter would begin paying authors a portion of the revenue from “ads that appear in their reply threads.” He stated that Twitter would only share revenue with authors who have Twitter Blue subscriptions, but he did not explain how the programme would operate or what users would be paid.
Twitter Blue, which features a blue checkmark, costs $8 per month for personal use when purchased online and $11 per month when paid through Apple’s iOS. To stop the stream of impersonators that overwhelmed Twitter and caused considerable confusion when Elon Musk ordered the Twitter Blue overhaul one month earlier, the firm relaunched the initiative in December with additional safeguards. In addition to leading Twitter at the moment, Musk oversees Tesla and SpaceX as their CEO.
Separately, a federal jury decided on Friday that Musk wasn’t responsible for losses suffered by Tesla shareholders as a result of the tech tycoon’s tweets from 2018 claiming that he had “secured” funding to take the electric vehicle manufacturer private for $420 per share and that “investor support” was “confirmed.” Musk tweeted after the decision was made, “Thank goodness, the people’s wisdom has prevailed! I am deeply appreciative of the jury’s unanimous finding of innocence in the Tesla 420 take-private case.”.