You can't make this up: First, Twitter CEO and owner Elon Musk said the company would remove legacy blue checkmarks for users who didn't cough up $8 per month for the Twitter Blue subscription tier. It took a while for the new, paid-for checkmarks to arrive, but the legacy checkmarks remained. Now, Twitter has finally killed off the blue checkmarks for non-paying users, but not all of them, as some celebrities still have the checkmark despite not paying(opens in a new tab) for them.
Turns out, Elon Musk is paying for these checkmarks out of his own pocket.
Tweet may have been deleted (opens in a new tab)
The man confirmed it himself on Twitter(opens in a new tab), admitting that he's personally paying for the blue ticks of William Shatner, LeBron James, and Stephen King. We checked and indeed, all three accounts still have their blue checkmark.
Musk did not elaborate further on why he chose to pay for the checkmarks, and it's unclear whether he plans to pay for more.
It may be Musk's idea of a joke, given that all three explicitly said(opens in a new tab) they would not pay(opens in a new tab) for the checkmarks. In a recent tweet, King said he hasn't subscribed to Twitter Blue or given his phone number to Twitter; previously, he said he won't pay for the checkmark(opens in a new tab) out of principle(opens in a new tab).
It could also be Twitter's new monetization model:
The company charges for checkmarks
People refuse to pay
Elon Musk steps in with his own money
Profit!
For most of us who don't subscribe to Twitter Blue, though, the checkmarks appear to be gone. At least now there's hope that a benefactor will descend from above and cough up the $8 per month instead of us.
