Stephen King has responded after being “trolled” by Elon Musk on Twitter.
As promised by the social media site’s CEO, blue tick verification status was stripped from every user who had not paid for a Twitter Blue subscription on Thursday (20 April).
In their first tweets without verificaton status, many celebrities suggested they were happy to be without the blue tick as they believe it would be embarrassing to pay $8 a month for it.
However, author King, who has been a vocal critic of Musk’s plan to remove free verification status, was confused to see he still had a blue tick as of Thursday evening.
The author tweeted: “My Twitter account says I’ve subscribed to Twitter Blue. I haven’t. My Twitter account says I’ve given a phone number. I haven’t.”
In response to King, Musk wrote: “You’re welcome namaste.”
It has since emerged that the Twitter CEO paid for King’s verification status, in a move that many believe was designed to “punish” the author for his past criticism of Musk. The Twitter CEO did the same thing for William Shatner and LeBron James.
“It seems that Elon trolled Stephen King by giving him a blue check he didn’t pay for,” @AngrierFish wrote, with @WlIIlAMTHON sarcastically adding: “Elon TOTALLY trolled this guy yeah heh he’s using his own money to not look like a pathetic loser in front of the advertisers heh he sure got Stephen King good!”
@karaswisher pointed out: “So Elon’s big beef was that twitter was arbitrarily handing out verifications under the old regime. So, what is he doing? arbitrarily handing out verifications AND paying for some of them himself even if no one wants them.”
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King is best known for writing classic horror books including The Stand, The Shining and Misery.
