Elon Musk tweets that all Twitter Blue subscribers “should get an authentication checkmark” and that the service should be ad-free for a lower ~$2/month price
👏 @elonmusk 👏 https://twitter.com/... @joelkatz : This actually makes a lot of sense. It would make Twitter a lot more money and would make it much more expensive to get your bots to compete with active, paying users. https://twitter.com/... @carnage4life : Randomized is actually not strong enough to describe the chaos energy that's about to hit every product roadmap at Twitter. https://twitter.com/... Manak Gupta / @manakgupta : This man will ruin Twitter https://twitter.com/... @carnage4life : Twitter's largest shareholder asking why people who tweet less than him have more followers than him is a great sign of how randomized Twitter employees are going to be over the next couple of months. Chandra R. Srikanth / @chandrarsrikant : Wonder what's going on in the CEO's mind. Elon has made him almost irrelevant https://twitter.com/... @reuterstech : Musk proposes Twitter Blue subscription shake-up days after disclosing 9.2% Twitter stake https://www.reuters.com/... https://twitter.com/... @slpng_giants : We're going to be subjected to this forever, aren't we? https://twitter.com/... Shai Goldman / @shaig : Make him the CEO of Twitter https://twitter.com/...
Axios
Context & Ripple Effects
Musk’s proposal puts identity signaling, advertising, and subscription pricing into one Twitter Blue package. It is the starting point for a later sequence in which Twitter considered a far higher-priced verification subscription and then recast the checkmark system as an $8 plan with reduced ads.
The later record also shows the operational tension in attaching verification to payment: Blue signups were paused after fake verified accounts appeared. The proposal therefore matters as an early attempt to make paid status, rather than a separate verification process, the product’s central differentiator.
First-order effects
Twitter Blue subscribers are positioned to receive a checkmark and an ad-free experience at roughly $2 per month, making the service a direct alternative to ad-supported use.
Twitter’s verification signal would become a subscriber entitlement under Musk’s proposal, changing what current and prospective Blue customers are paying for.
Second-order effects
A payment-linked checkmark increases the incentive for impersonators to buy access, a risk later reflected in the pause after fake verified accounts, forcing Twitter to weigh subscription conversion against trust controls.
Twitter’s ad business would have to accommodate an ad-free paid tier; the later shift to half as many ads for Blue subscribers shows a more graduated version of that trade-off.
Third-order effects
If payment remains linked to account status, platform identity signals shift from a selective trust designation toward a recurring-revenue feature, requiring stronger safeguards to preserve their meaning.
The subsequent movement from a proposed ad-free $2 tier to higher-priced, reduced-ad tiers points to subscription segmentation becoming a core lever for balancing user revenue with advertising inventory.
The trend: Twitter Blue is becoming a tiered subscription product that bundles visibility, identity signaling, and ad reduction rather than a standalone premium feature set.
@PPathole Price should probably be ~$2/month, but paid 12 months up front & account doesn't get checkmark for 60 days (watch for CC chargebacks) & suspended with no refund if used for scam/spam
Even though it'd cost me money, I like @profgalloway's idea of charging public figures and corporations a monthly service fee that scales with your following. Twitter is mostly for PR anyhow. https://twitter.com/...
These guys really want to make Twitter into the type of cesspool Facebook has become. Which, hey, if that's what they want, good for them. But just as I haven't logged into Facebook in probably a year, I imagine that'll happen with Twitter for a lot of people, as well. https://tw…
@elonmusk Elon, what happens after that monthly subscription ($3/month) comes to an end or is over? Would “people” still be able to keep their verification check mark? Or the subscription has to be renewed in order to get that check mark back again?
If Elon Musk leaves Twitter in like a year to start his own platform, which we should remember was his original threat, do they Men-In-Black his brain? https://twitter.com/...
Elon Musk being Elon Musk. Twitter doesn't even own the building. Like anything in SF, this was a real estate scheme with a big payoff. Shorenstein bought it for $110 million in 2011, and turned around and flipped for $800 million in 2015, after tax breaks lured Twitter. https://…
A stupid idea form a man who thinks money makes your ideas palatable. Just like him to suggest buying legitimacy. Already making twitter (he wants it to be called “titter” because he's THAT much of a macho douche), a dumber, more a-hole-ish place. https://twitter.com/...
Marc, I hope you have been well. I was just wondering how much land/real estate you own in SF/Silicon Valley. I'm sorry for the recent death of your father-in-law. However, I think it brings up inheritance questions as he was the largest landowner in SF. https://twitter.com/... h…
Say what you want about @elonmusk, but he's obviously bringing a new level of class, critical thinking and maturity to Twitter... https://twitter.com/...
Is Elon the only billionaire actually spending money on something cool like becoming a physicalized trickster chaos spirit? Jeff's clock is neat but it doesn't compare with Sulla level trolls of despised middle management types https://twitter.com/...
Pro tip for @twitter C-suite: Just because Elon says it doesn't mean you must do it. He can be ignored (blasphemy, I know). Verification is to insure identity, not indicative of a payment. Keep it that way. Elon Musk suggests Twitter Blue overhaul https://www.axios.com/...
I'm so old, I remember when Twitter specifically chose the SF Tenderloin district for their HQ to try to help revitalize the long-disastrous area, and then promptly got blamed for all the carnage and chaos instead. https://twitter.com/...
This actually makes a lot of sense. It would make Twitter a lot more money and would make it much more expensive to get your bots to compete with active, paying users. https://twitter.com/...
Twitter's largest shareholder asking why people who tweet less than him have more followers than him is a great sign of how randomized Twitter employees are going to be over the next couple of months.