Elon Musk appears to be verifying the Twitter accounts of dead celebrities with blue ticks, in his latest bizarre move since buying the social media platform.
Just days after thousands of celebrities, journalists and politicians lost their legacy-verified check marks, some accounts have seen them suddenly reappear – including on accounts that belong to the deceased.
Kobe Bryant, Chadwick Boseman, Anthony Bourdain, and Paul Walker have all been added to the membership, despite no longer being with us.
Their accounts now feature a blue check, which, if hovered over, displays the message: “This account is verified because they are subscribed to Twitter Blue and verified their phone number,” implying that they have signed up to pay the $8 a month for the mark.
It’s not clear whether someone has paid for the Twitter Blue subscription for the accounts, or whether Twitter had decided to grant them for free.
Some of the profiles are still actively managed, while many haven’t been used since the celebrities died.
Earlier this week, Musk orchestrated the removal of tens of thousands of verification ticks, in an attempt to get people on board with the Twitter Blue subscription.
Famous faces like Piers Morgan, Kim Kardashian and Justin Bieber all lost their verified marks.
In another bizarre step, he then decided to sign up unwilling A-listers like Stephen King, LeBron James, and William Shatner to Twitter Blue, paying for their subscriptions himself.
Unhappy with the move, author Stephen King tweeted that Musk should ‘give my blue check to charity’.
Following the mass cull of blue ticks on April 20, other stars like Sir Ian McKellen, Ricky Gervais, Chrissy Teigen and John Legend suddenly got their blue ticks back but have insisted that they didn't pay for the subscription.
Tesla owner Musk has made a number of interesting business moves since purchasing the company for $44billion in October last year.
He’s changed how users’ timelines work, removed the blue ticks from thousands of accounts and sacked more than 75% of the company’s employees.
