When Elon Musk infuriated Twitter users in April 2023 by removing the verified blue checkmarks from the accounts of celebrities, athletes, politicians, CEOs and the media who wouldn't pay $8 a month for them, many of those people were quick to criticize Musk for his decision.
Some of those prominent people like Los Angeles Lakers basketball star LeBron James, actor Halle Berry and best-selling suspense author Stephen King said at the time they would proudly join other Twitter users in not having the blue checkmark.
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Elon Musk Would Pay for Some Verified Blue Checks
The billionaire CEO of Tesla (TSLA) -), however, said in a tweet that he'd pay for three celebrity blue checks, including actor William Shatner, James and King. The author tweeted his dissatisfaction after seeing a message claiming, "This account is verified because they are subscribed to Twitter Blue and verified their phone number." King said he did not pay for a subscription and had not given his phone number.
Musk purchased X, formerly known as Twitter, in October 2022 for $44 billion and incurred $13 billion in debt when the deal closed. He, said he made the blue checkmark decision because of advances in artificial intelligence, which enable bots to successfully pass themselves off as humans.
Musk said he would give priority to verified accounts to limit the proliferation of bots on the social network because it has ensured that the people and groups behind those accounts are who and what they say they are.
Thousands of imposter accounts popped up overnight causing chaos and major problems, especially for public companies, when Musk launched the idea back in November that anyone could purchase a blue check regardless of verification.
Musk reversed the idea quickly two days after the launch of the new version of Blue and suspended signups on Nov. 11.
Changing Social Media Platform's Name, Logo
But Musk wasn't finished tinkering with his multibillion-dollar toy. In April, the billionaire quietly changed the name of Twitter Inc. to X Corp. And on July 24, Musk killed both the iconic blue bird logo and Twitter name, replacing them with a new X name and logo.
Musk in March 2023 estimated X's value at about $20 billion, and a month later, Fidelity said the company's value had fallen to $14.41 billion. The company reported $5.1 billion in revenue in 2021, $4.4 billion in 2022 and is expected to finish 2023 with $3 billion.
Whether changing the company's iconic name and logo will successfully turn around X is still yet to be seen. But the name change has still ruffled the feathers of prominent people.
For science-fiction, horror and suspense author King, billionaire Elon Musk's renaming his social media platform Twitter as X is a name he apparently does not plan to recognize or accept. In that case, King might prefer that Musk maybe refer to his company as "X the Unknown," a 1956 science-fiction horror film starring Dean Jagger.
King on July 27 tweeted his thoughts on the name change with a message, "Twitter, Twitter, Twitter, Twitter, Twitter, Twitter, Twitter, Twitter, Twitter, Twitter, Twitter, Twitter, Twitter, Twitter And in case you didn't get that: Twitter."
Twitter Twitter Twitter Twitter Twitter
— Stephen King (@StephenKing) July 27, 2023
Twitter Twitter Twitter Twitter
Twitter Twitter Twitter
Twitter Twitter
And in case you didn't get that:
Twitter.
