The new Twitter CEO Elon Musk is rebuilding the short message service without further ado with a new and significantly more expensive subscription, but without any consideration for the employees. Twitter Blue should be switched over by November 7th, otherwise the staff responsible for implementation should be fired.
New subscription or employees are kicked out
As the website The Verge reports, Elon Musk, who officially took over Twitter on October 28 and delisted it, is said to have given his employees an ultimatum. As a result, by November 7, 2022, employees should upgrade their paid Twitter Blue subscription, which currently costs $4.99, to a more expensive subscription for $19.99 – or be fired if they fail to do so.
The website therefore had internal correspondence from Twitter, which is said to verify the facts of the matter, which is also said to have been confirmed by people familiar with the matter.
Elon Musk had already made it clear in the months leading up to his takeover that the way Twitter verified its accounts and dealt with bots needed to be overhauled. Then last weekend he wrote: “The entire verification process is currently being revised”.
The whole verification process is being revamped right now
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) October 30, 2022
Platformer's Casey Newton was the first to report that Twitter is considering charging for account verification. This feature should now be included in the “Twitter Blue” subscription and then remain exclusive to subscriptions.
New subscription or user losing verification< /h2>
After account verification has become a part of the then $19.99 subscription, already verified users will have 90 days to complete the new subscription. Otherwise users will lose their verification and the blue tick.
Elon Musk is said to be planning a layoff
As The Verge further reports, Elon Musk is said to be planning mass layoffs among middle management and programmers, who have not recently contributed to the code base of the short message service, with the help of Tesla engineers whom he brought to Twitter as consultants.
The layoffs should therefore begin this week, and corresponding lists of the employees affected are already being drawn up. Staff tasked with executing projects commissioned by Elon Musk since he took control Thursday evening are said to be working late into the night and through the weekend.
The return of Donald Trump is (not) a topic
Since the controversial multi-billionaire took over Twitter, there has also been a discussion about whether the former US President Donald Trump would celebrate his comeback. His user account was suspended due to a large number of false statements as well as countless instances of “hateful speech” in the direct result of Trump supporters' failed Capitol coup attempt in January 2021. Elon Musk has so far been very evasive on this question.
If I had a dollar for every time someone asked me if Trump is coming back on this platform, Twitter would be minting money!
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) October 31, 2022