Elon Musk, who now officially owns Twitter after completing his $44 billion deal, plans to charge users of the platform $20 a month to earn the coveted verification badge through a Twitter Blue subscription. Additionally, those who are already verified will have 90 days to subscribe or lose their verified status. Oh, and the project team was told they have until November 7th to release the feature or they’ll be fired.
As Platformer and The Verge have reported, Twitter Blue currently costs $4.99 per month and allows users to edit their tweets, get early access to new features, and more, but currently has nothing to do with verification.
Verification, as of this writing, aims to “let people know that a public interest account is authentic. To receive the blue badge, your account must be authentic, notable, and active.” There is no charge for verification, as this is only intended as a way to prevent accounts from impersonating you if your account has been proven to be in the public interest. It’s currently unclear if this new plan will verify everyone with a Twitter Blue subscription, or if only those who subscribe to it will be considered.
Musk has been outspoken about his desire to address how Twitter verifies accounts and handles its bot issues, tweeting on Sunday, Oct. 30 that “the entire verification process is being revamped right now.”
Although he only closed the deal on October 28, Musk has already made moves, including changing the homepage to the Explore page for users who sign out. There are also reports that it plans to cut as many as 5,000 jobs or more than 5,000 in a move “targeted at middle managers and engineers who have not recently contributed to the code base.”
Twitter currently makes most of its money from advertising, but these changes and more are part of Musk’s plans to make subscriptions at least “half of the company’s overall revenue.”
After making the initial $44 billion deal to buy Twitter, Musk rescinded the deal after, among other things, Musk alleged breach of contract after saying Twitter wasn’t doing enough to disclose how many bots of spam and fake accounts were on the platform. He was sued for this dismissal and was going to court if he didn’t complete the deal by October 28, but he did it just below the wire.
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Adam Bankhurst is a news writer for IGN. You can follow him on Twitter @AdamBankhurst and on Twitch.