New Twitter Owner, Elon Musk Confirms Monthly Charges On Users ‘Verified’ Accounts

Social networking service giant, Twitter is estimated to be making an additional N1.49bn as its new owner, Elon Musk announced verified users will be charged N3500 ($8) monthly.

Recall, on Tuesday, November 1, 2022, Elon Musk announced that the social media app will now be charging verified users 3500 ($8) per month.

The World’s richest man while announcing the new charges argued that the plan would open the platform’s “current lords & peasants system” and create a new revenue stream for the company.

The announcement comes days after the world’s wealthiest man took sole control of the social media giant in a contentious $44 billion deal.

“Power to the people! Blue for $8/month,” he tweeted, in reference to the platform’s famous blue checkmark that signals a verified, authentic account.

The new plan’s pricing would be adjusted by country “proportionate to purchasing power parity,” Musk added in the replies to his original tweet, and would also include “priority” in replying to and searching posts, which he called “essential to defeat spam/scam.”

There would also be expanded video abilities, fewer ads, and the possibility for users to get a “paywall bypass for publishers willing to work with us,” he said.

“This will also give Twitter a revenue stream to reward content creators,” Musk tweeted.

In addition to offering verification privileges, the new program would take over the existing functions of Twitter Blue — currently available for $5 per month — which, for example, allows users to edit their tweets.

According to World Statistics, there are 423,700 verified accounts on Twitter. If it begins charging N3500 ($8) monthly on those accounts, the company will be making an additional N1.49bn annually.

Currently, according to Macrotrends, Twitter’s revenue for 2022 was a little over $5 billion, which represented an increase of almost 37%.

Meanwhile, it was reported earlier that Elon Musk has dissolved Twitter’s Board of Directors.

The move was announced in a document filed by the company to the US Security and Exchange Commission, Business Insider reports.

A number of top executives, including the boss, Parag Agrawal, the Chief Financial Officer, Ned Segal; Chief legal officer, Vijaya Gadde; and general counsel Sean Edgett, were also dismissed the same day.

The filing which was published read in part, “On October 27, 2022, and as a result of the consummation of the Merger, Mr. Musk became the sole director of Twitter.

“In accordance with the terms of the Merger Agreement, effective as of the effective time of the Merger, the following persons, who were directors of Twitter prior to the effective time of the Merger, are no longer directors of Twitter: Bret Taylor, Parag Agrawal, Omid Kordestani, David Rosenblatt, Martha Lane Fox, Patrick Pichette, Egon Durban, Fei-Fei Li, and Mimi Alemayehou.”