Elon Musk, the owner of Twitter, has claimed that some employees at the social media company were demanding thousands of dollars from users to verify them on the networking site.
Musk made the revelation in the midst of disagreement over his proposal to start charging verified badge holders $8 per month to maintain the “blue tick” and $19.99 for “Twitter Blue,” a feature that grants you exclusive access to premium features that let you personalise your Twitter experience and undo tweets.
A Twitter user who is known for raising the alarm about Wall Street activities revealed that Twitter employees made it difficult for people like him to get verification ticks through standard applications in a tweet on Saturday.
The user said Twitter workers privately demand about $15,000 to verify an account, and refuse to verify those that apply through standard process.
“Twitter employees were selling verification for upwards of $15,000. 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. Investigation needed.”
Responding to WSBChairman, Musk alluded to his statement by simply replying with “Yup”. This led to other Twitter uses, including WSBChairman, uploading screenshots to support their claims.
The allegation of persons buying Twitter verification has been ongoing for years, but no one in the top position at the company had ever confirmed it until Musk did this weekend.
Meanwhile, Musk’s response came at a time Twitter is planning to sack about half of its workers from the current 7,000 workforce. Already, some had been laid off on Friday, and the sack is expected to continue between this fourth quarter and next year.
The sacked workers were given three months severance pay, which Musk said is above legal labour requirements. He said Twitter was losing about $4 million daily led to the decision to cut the company’s workforce.