The tweet was in response to a post by author Stephen King who expressed his disappointment at the rumoured $20 fee. “$20 a month to keep my blue check? F*** that, they should pay me. If that gets instituted, I’m gone like Enron", replied King to a Twitter poll asking users how much they are willing to pay to get the blue checkmark on the platform.
The poll has four options – $5 a month, $10 a month, $15 a month and Wouldn’t pay. The poll went live on October 31. At the time of publishing, about 81.7% of the users responded that they will not pay for Twitter blue tick.
Wondering what the Enron mentioned in the author's tweet refers to? It symbolizes the epic fall of the major US corporation Enron – a energy-trading and utility company based in Houston, Texas.
Coming back to Elon Musk, he responded to King’s tweet saying “We need to pay the bills somehow! Twitter cannot rely entirely on advertisers. How about $8?".
“I will explain the rationale in longer form before this is implemented. It is the only way to defeat the bots & trolls", he further added.
The Twitter head formally acquired Twitter in a $44 billion deal. In almost a week since taking charge of the platform, Musk has changed his Twitter bio from ‘Chief Twit’ a few days back to ‘Twitter Complaint Hotline Operator’ today.
For the unversed, Twitter Blue was launched in 2021 and offers exclusive access to premium features like ability to edit tweets, undo tweets and more. At present, Twitter Blue subscription costs $4.99.
