After Elon Musk had acquired Twitter in a $44 billion deal (RM208 billion), he is now planning to change on how verification works on the platform.
According to reports, Musk plans to charge users $20 (RM95) per month for a Twitter Blue membership in order to get the verification badge.
Those who are already has the badge will have 90 days to subscribe. If not, they will lose their verification status.
Musk has been quite vocal about his desire to change the way Twitter validates users and deals with bots in the months building up to his purchase. He tweeted on Sunday that “The whole verification process is being revamped right now.”
Despite only closing the deal on October 28, Musk has already made changes. The first change that he made is redirecting logged-out users to the Explore page from the Home page.
Furthermore, it has been said that he intends to lay off more than 5000 people. Musk is specifically targeting “middle management and engineers who haven’t lately contributed to the code base.”
Currently, advertising is what brings in the most money for Twitter. Musk has ambitions to shift that such that subscriptions account for at least “50% of the company’s entire income.”
He completed in acquiring Twitter after backing out initially on the deal. Musk moved to buy Twitter in an acquisition deal in April. However, he backed out on the deal in May citing concerns about the number of bots on the platform.
Twitter ultimately launched a lawsuit to enforce the terms of the agreement. Musk resumed his acquisition intentions in early October, but only on the condition that legal processes be put on hold.