Elon Musk responded to Stephen King on Tuesday after the author said he’d quit Twitter if he had to pay $20 for his Twitter verification badge.
The richest man in the world took control of Twitter last week after months of legal battles.
According to a report by The Verge, which cited people familiar with the matter and internal correspondence, Musk plans to charge verified users $20 a month to keep the blue tick next to their name. This has sparked controversy among Twitter users, given that verifications are currently free of charge.
Bestselling writer King tweeted on Monday he would be “gone like Enron” if Twitter made him pay $20 to keep his blue checkmark. He added, “Fuck that, they should pay me.”
In response to King’s tweet, Musk said: “We need to pay the bills somehow! Twitter cannot rely entirely on advertisers.”
The billionaire suggested to King that the Twitter verification fee could be $8 a month.
“I will explain the rationale in longer form before this is implemented. It is the only way to defeat the bots & trolls,” Musk said in a follow-up tweet. Removing bots on the site was one of Musk’s plans when he first offered to buy Twitter in April.
