Is Elon Musk paying for famous people’s blue checks?
Two days after ending verified accounts that had been around for a long time and switching to a membership model, it looks like some well-known accounts have gotten their blue checks back.
The website for microblogging has changed its rules about the verification method it used to have. After taking over Twitter, Elon Musk, the CEO of Tesla, said that those who sign up for it will be able to buy blue checks for $8.
After the “blue tick purge” was announced on April 20, Twitter deleted all legacy or unsubscribed verified accounts from its site.
But it’s interesting that some famous people have started getting their confirmed accounts back even though they didn’t pay for the service.
Even though they did not pay for the service, Pope Francis, former US president Donald Trump, and education worker Malala Yousafzai all had accounts with the blue tick.
Does Elon Musk pay for famous people to get blue checks?
Does Elon Musk pay for famous people to get blue checks?
Paul Krugman, who won a Nobel Prize, was also one of the few people whose account was fixed.
Krugman said that he won’t pay for the service after getting back his blue card.
And Musk did his usual thing to answer.
Rana Ayyub, an Indian journalist, was upset by the ruling.
The Twitter account of Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) leader Senator Faisal Javed Khan was also used without him having signed up for the service.
Faisal thinks that Musk’s “eidi” might have been used in the repair.
Many users aren’t sure if Elon Musk was just trolling or if the company had just given up on its membership policy.
After famous people brought back the blue ticks, it was interesting that Musk said he was paying for some accounts.
Daily Beast says that Musk has only brought back the blue checks for people with the most followers. He seems to have given up on the $8 subscription problem.
When the CEO of Twitter introduced a subscription plan for verified users, a group called “Block The Blue” started up. Musk then brought back the blue tick for users who helped spread the movement or were against the new policy.
This added to the rumours about trolling.
When he was accused of trolling, Musk said, “A troll? Me?”
Musk even offered to pay for Robert Reich’s “Blue Badge” when he was the US secretary of labour. Reich was one of the people who didn’t like the subscription-based plan.
“I will pay for your blue cheque – it’s my gift to you,” Musk tweeted in reaction to a thread in which former Labour Secretary Robert Reich turned down Musk’s blue cheque and criticised “oligarchs who have too much power over the Internet.”
Does Elon Musk pay for famous people to get blue checks?
Musk has offered to pay for Reich’s Twitter subscription, but until this report was made, Reich’s account wasn’t verified.
Musk has written that he is paying for basketball player LeBron James’s Blue Badge, actor William Shatner’s Blue Badge, and author Stephen King’s Blue Badge.
King was one of the users who said that Musk’s verification method was a bad idea. Even though the author didn’t subscribe to the service, his badge was brought back.
But even after getting the badge back, King was still not happy. He told Musk that he should give his ‘blue tick’ to the Ukrainian NGO Prytula Foundation as a donation.
Musk told King in a tweet that he had already given $100 million to Ukraine, and he asked King what he had done.