Now that Elon Musk owns Twitter, he has given employees their first ultimatum! Either meet his deadline to introduce paid verification or just pack up and leave. After completing his $44 billion acquisition of the social media platform last week, Elon took over Twitter. Since then, a lot has happened at Twitter, from key staff members and the board of directors being fired to Musk walking into the headquarters with a sink in his hand.

The latest changes he made are the changes to Twitter’s paid verification system. Now instead of ‘blue tick’ being offered to users who have an active and notable account or a large number of followers, or what Musk calls a ‘lords & peasants system’, the blue tick verification will now be available to only Twitter Blue subscribers at the price of $8 per month. Elon Musk revealed the perks of paying a monthly subscription fee for the verification of their account on Twitter as he seeks to boost subscriptions and make the social media network less reliant on ads.

twitter verification

“Twitter’s current lords & peasants system for who has or doesn’t have a blue checkmark is bulls**t. Power to the people! Blue for $8/month,” Musk tweeted on Tuesday. He further wrote that the $8 subscription fee will be “adjusted by country proportionate to purchasing power parity.”

The subscribers to the Twitter Blue service will have several other perks of the Twitter Blue service along with a verification badge. Subscribers will get “Priority in replies, mentions and search” – a feature that Musk says will help in defeating bots and spam.

Twitter Blue’s verification service was currently priced at $4.99 per month, which itself was increased from its former monthly fee of $2.99 earlier. Accounts that sign up for Twitter Blue service which charges $8 will be able to post longer videos and audio; will be shown half as many ads; and their tweets will be prioritised in replies, searches and mentions.

“To all complainers, please continue complaining, but it will cost $8,” he tweeted shortly after explaining the benefits of the new Twitter Blue service.

According to Musk’s tweets, an alternate tag will be added to accounts belonging to public figures, “which is already the case for politicians.”