Twitter will charge $8 per month for blue tick, announces Elon Musk

Twitter CEO Elon Musk on Tuesday announced how much his company will charge for blue tick. He said Twitter's current "lords and peasants system" for who has or doesn’t have "a blue checkmark is bullshit".

Musk said people now can get their account verified or blue tick by paying $8 per month. "Power to the people! Blue for $8/month," he said in a tweet on Tuesday.

The billionaire said the users who have blue tick will also get priority in replies, mentions, and searches, which is essential to defeating spam/scams. They will also get to post long videos and audio. 

In another tweet, Musk said the publishers who are willing to work with Twitter will bypass the paywall. "This will also give Twitter a revenue stream to reward content creators," he said.

Earlier, it was reported that Musk was planning to charge users $19.99 for the new Twitter Blue subscription. However, this evoked sharp reactions from a section of users who expressed surprise at the amount and said they will give up the tag instead.

Storyteller Stephen King in a tweet said: "$20 a month to keep my blue check?...they should pay me. If that gets instituted, I’m gone like Enron."

Replying to his tweet, Musk said: "We need to pay the bills somehow! Twitter cannot rely entirely on advertisers. How about $8?"

The Twitter CEO said he will explain the rationale in a longer form before this is implemented. "It is the only way to defeat the bots & trolls," he added.

Musk recently acquired Twitter in a $44 billion deal after a series of back-and-forth over differences with the management on real numbers of bots. He took over the US-based company on Sunday. Ever since he took over, Musk has effected many changes at the company including the firing of its CEO and directors.

The new Twitter boss is also in the process of laying off 25 per cent workforce, according to the Washington Post.