Elon Musk admits Twitter staff sold blue tick verification for up to $15,000

Twitter CEO Elon Musk acknowledged a major lapse on the platform relating to blue tick verifications, days after he revealed his plans to charge users $8 per month for it. Recently, a user on the platform claimed that “Twitter employees were selling verification for upwards of $15,000.”

The user further added that “for certain accounts, mine included, they would refuse to verify you through the standard application and then privately offer to verify you for $$ behind the scenes,” and called for a probe into the matter. Providing a brief response to this, Musk wrote “Yup” on his Twitter handle.

The Twitter CEO also pointed out how easy it has been to acquire a blue tick verification badge on the platform with the help of third-party apps. Acknowledging this, Musk wrote in another post: “Far too many legacy “verified” checkmarks were handed out, often arbitrarily, so in reality they are *not* verified. You can buy as many as you want right now with a Google search.”

“Piggybacking off payment system plus Apple/Android is a much better way to ensure verification,” he added. Musk’s remarks came after Shibetoshi Nakamoto, the creator of Dogecoin, opposed the idea of having to pay $8 per month for the verification feature. 

Musk reveals plans of paid verification after becoming Twitter CEO

“I’ll just be straight up - i don’t think the $8 for verification feature is a good idea, based on what i am hearing about its implementation. i don’t think it solves any problem it is trying to solve. too many big changes too quickly can terminally destroy a platform, see digg,” he wrote, adding that he believes in paid features but does not think that paying for verification badges is the correct way to generate more revenue. 

Last week, Musk took over Twitter as the CEO after he completed the $44 billion acquisition deal. Soon after, he decided to make a raft of changes, such as paid blue ticks, mass layoffs, and tight deadlines which forced several employees to increase their work hours and even sleep at the office during the night. Twitter also fired nearly 50% of its workforce by sharing blunt emails that informed the sacked employees that it was their last day at work.