Dhe new Twitter owner Elon Musk wants to ask users of the short message service to check out their user accounts and charge eight dollars a month. The previous system for awarding the blue tick was “bullshit” (original English: “Bullshit”), the multi-billionaire wrote on Twitter on Tuesday. In the future, a subscription to the paid offer Twitter Blue should be a prerequisite for verifying an account.
Its price should be increased from the current $4.99 to $8 per month, Musk continued. However, the subscription price should be set for each country according to purchasing power. Twitter Blue users would also get priority for replies, mentions and searches, be able to post “long videos and audios,” and get half as much advertising as other Twitter users. Musk even considered charging $19.99 a month for the expanded Twitter Blue offering.
The boss of the electric car manufacturer Tesla and the space company SpaceX took over Twitter last week for 44 billion dollars (around 44 billion euros). He immediately dismissed top management and later also dissolved the board of directors. As the sole director, the richest person in the world now has complete power over the online platform.
Observers had expected Musk to expand the Twitter Blue payment service to generate more revenue for the short message service. So far, user accounts from politicians, celebrities, journalists and organizations, for example, have been verified and marked with a blue tick in the standard offer without asking for money.