Twitter is strongly considering charging verified users $19.99 per month to use Twitter Blue, according to reports in The Verge and Platformer, as Elon Musk seeks alternative ways of picking up more revenue.
According to the reports, which broke yesterday, Musk, who is expected to set out more layoffs this week, has tasked staff with updating Twitter Blue and quadrupling the subscription price from its current level of $4.99 per month. If staff fail to update by November 7, they could lose their roles, according to the reports.
The particular report comes a day after Musk in a tweet mentioned that Twitter will revise its user verification process. However, he did not any detail related to the charges.
“Whole verification process is being revamped right now”, he tweeted.
The Twitter Blue subscription launched widely almost a year ago as a way to view ad-free articles from some publishers and make other tweaks to the app, such as a different color home screen icon.
In April, Twitter accepted Musk’s proposal to buy and take the social media service private. However, Musk soon began sowing doubt about his intentions to follow through with the agreement, alleging that the company failed to adequately disclose the number of spam and fake accounts on the service. In July, in a surprising turn of events, Elon Musk who had long been showing his interest to buy Twitter terminated the deal. The Tesla CEO did so by alleging that Twitter violated their mutual purchase agreement by misrepresenting the number of spam and fake bot accounts on its platform.
After Musk put out the deal termination announcement, the market saw a sharp decline. Later, Twitter sued Musk accusing him of using bots as a pretext to exit a deal. Again, last week, Musk confirmed that he would move forward with the Twitter buyout at the originally agreed price of USD 54.20 per share. (ANI)