How much does Elon Musk plan to charge businesses to keep verified checkmarks?

Twitter’s new owner has a plan to create a new revenue stream for the floundering business, a new fee for companies to attain a gold checkmark verification. Elon Musk finally bought Twitter at the end of October after a drawn-out battle to wiggle out of his $44 billion acquisition of the social media platform. The billionaire planned to bring “free speech” back to the “digital town square” and make the site profitable.

His moves to do so have proved controversial from his sacking of over half the workforce, including teams that dealt with content moderation, to charging $8 per month for the platform’s coveted blue checkmark. The rollout of the latter, which previously was reserved for verified accounts of politicians, famous personalities, journalists and other public figures, had to be halted a day after it was launched after user abuse such as impersonating legitimate accounts. When the new system was finally put in place, three levels of verification were given to accounts, blue, grey and gold.

Elon Musk plans to charge businesses to keep verified checkmarks

The turmoil that has racked Twitter since Musk walked through the front door carrying a sink has roiled users to the extent that when he held a vote on whether he should step down as the head of the social network over 57 percent said “yes.” The chaotic management of the platform and fears about the new policies has also caused an exodus of advertisers. This, along with the precipitous drop in the value of his Tesla stock, has seen the billionaire’s fortune shrink by roughly $200 billion knocking him off the top pedestal.

In order to stop some of the hemorrhaging at Twitter, a new policy has been put in place to bring in more revenue according to Variety. Companies will now have to pay the social media platform $1,000 a month, plus $50 monthly for each affiliated sub-account which will allow them to maintain the gold check-mark verification badges.

Social media consultant Matt Navarra tweeted an email from the company explaining the new Twitter Blue for Business details. “Thanks for your interest in Verified Organizations. We’re now opening the gates for early access to our Organization plan,” the email read.

“As an early access subscriber, you’ll get a gold checkmark for your organization and affiliation badges for its associates. Next week, we’ll onboard you to our administration protal and you’ll be eligible for Twee Boosting, which will increase the reach and distribution for your organization and its affiliates whenever you tweet.”

The details were confirmed by The Information but like the initial rollout of the Twitter Blue paid subscription, the tech news website added that the pricing “is being finalized and could still change.”