Author Stephen King's 'F*** that' to $20 Twitter blue tick fee; Musk attempts negotiation

On Monday, King questioned the anticipated fee for a verified badge on the social media handle that was recently taken over by Elon Musk in a $44 billion deal. There are speculations that Musk will charge $20 to all verified Twitter denoted by a blue tick on their handles.

Hyderabad: Believe it or not, renowned author Stephen King and Elon Musk are engaged in negotiation over the fees over the Twitter blue tick. The funny banter between the two on Twitter has left Twitterati in splits.

On Monday, King questioned the anticipated fee for a verified badge on the social media handle that was recently taken over by Elon Musk in a $44 billion deal. There are speculations that Musk will charge $20 to all verified Twitter denoted by a blue tick on their handles. Reacting to it, King expressed his disappointment in a tweet.

"$20 a month to keep my blue check? F*** that, they should pay me. If that gets instituted, I'm gone like Enron," he tweeted. The Enron reference was about how a large business that once made millions had to sell everything out.

Responding to King's tweet, Musk wrote, "We need to pay the bills somehow! Twitter cannot rely entirely on advertisers. How about $8?" He added in another comment that he will "explain the rationale in longer form before this is implemented. It is the only way to defeat the bots & trolls".

After taking over Twitter, Musk changed his Twitter bio to "Chief Twit" which he has now updated to "Twitter Complaint Hotline Operator". Social media is abuzz with debate over the fee Twitter is likely to charge from its verified users. Given how the Tesla CEO works, users are expecting major changes in the way the microblogging platform will function in the coming days.

Without revealing much about his intentions on the same, Musk had tweeted recently that the "whole verification process is being revamped right now." However, a few US-based media platforms have revealed that Musk is planning to charge users USD 19.99 -- which amounts to over Rs 1600 -- for the new Twitter Blue subscription.

Though this subscription will provide advantages through features like edit and undo tweets, the cost has taken many netizens by surprise. As per the current plan, the verified users have been given 90 days to subscribe to the app or they may lose their blue checkmark.

The users, meanwhile, are not the only ones taken aback by this rather unpleasant surprise -- the employees working on the project too, have been warned that they may get fired if they don't incorporate the said feature by November 7, the reports said.

The Twitter Blue subscription feature was launched about a year ago in an attempt to make the platform an ad-free experience, other than adding some tweaks like a variety in the home screen icon color and such.