Elon Musk Tells William Shatner Subscription-Only Twitter Blue Check-Marks Are ‘About Treating Everyone Equally’

K.J. Yossman Elon Musk has called his take-over of Twitter “quite painful” in an unexpected late-night interview with the BBC. The tech billionaire sat down with BBC North America tech reporter James Clayton at Twitter’s headquarters in San Francisco on Tuesday evening local time. Asked about his previous comments regarding Twitter being “painful,” Musk acknowledged that was still the case but added, “I wasn’t stabbed, like some people around here.” The comment is understood to refer to the murder of Cash app founder Bob Lee, who was stabbed to death in San Francisco last week.

In a last-minute interview given to the BBC overnight, Twitter owner Elon Musk said his time at the social media platform has been “a rollercoaster” with a “high pain level”. Delivering updates on a number of his more controversial decisions, he said “mistakes [have been] made along the way” but that the social media giant is “headed to a good place.”

If you have a legacy verified account on Twitter, get ready to say goodbye to your blue checkmark very soon unless you want to pay to keep it.

Todd Spangler NY Digital Editor Elon Musk has set a deadline for purging legacy blue check-marks from Twitter accounts verified under the company’s previous regime — maybe. On Tuesday, the billionaire owner of Twitter tweeted, “Final date for removing legacy Blue checks is 4/20.” Musk is notorious for his love of memes and jokes, including those involving 420 (i.e., the unofficial day/time for toking up). So it’s not fully clear if April 20 is actually the cutoff date for revoking verification from accounts unless they’ve signed up for a Twitter Blue subscription. Twitter previously announced that starting April 1, it would begin removing the blue check-mark badges from legacy verified accounts — those which the company had previously deemed to be notable and/or authentic — unless users have signed up for the Twitter Blue subscription service, which starts at $8 per month. That doesn’t appear to have begun in a widespread way at this point.

Mediaite.Twitter has similarly blocked would-be rivals like Mastodon from sharing live links on the platform. But Substack is the home of hundreds of influential writers who need platforms like Twitter and Facebook to share it beyond their subscription bases.Taibbi said in a Substack chat that Twitter is now “unusable” for him, and that Musk did not respond to his questions about the move, Mashable’s Matt Binder reported.

Elon Musk has made a noticeable change on Twitter. On Monday, without an explanation, the social media site debuted a new logo on the web version.

Todd Spangler NY Digital Editor Elon Musk is now using the design of Twitter itself to make hilarious (?) jokes. On Monday, without warning, the iconic Twitter bird logo on the home button of the social network’s web version changed to the “doge” of the Dogecoin cryptocurrency. (Twitter’s mobile apps weren’t changed.) The doge image (of a Shiba Inu) is part of the logo of the Dogecoin blockchain and cryptocurrency, which was created as a joke in 2013 — to mock other cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin. Musk, who bought Twitter last fall in a $44 billion deal, is a well-known superfan of the Doge meme and he has promoted Dogecoin both on Twitter and during his appearance last year hosting “Saturday Night Live.” After the change to Twitter’s web logo Monday, the value of Dogecoin rose more than 20%.

Since the earliest days of Twitter, the social media platform has used a blue checkmark to verify the accounts of celebrities, journalists, politicians and other notables, serving as proof that they are who they claim to be.

sticks to his announcement from earlier this month, then at some point on April 1 — which on the west coast, as of this writing begins in approximately 45 minutes — Twitter’s account verification system will end; at that point, all so-called “legacy” verified accounts will lose their blue checkmarks, and only people willing to pay $8 a month for a subscription to Twitter Blue will get to have them.But as we’ve seen all week, the plan to convert “legacy” verified account holders into paid subscribers doesn’t appear, so far, to be a rollicking success. Case in point, Musk’s apparent social media rival, President Joe Biden.

Elon Musk announced earlier this month, all “legacy” verified accounts will lose their blue check. Henceforth, only people who pay $8 a month to subscribe to “Twitter Blue” will receive one.This change also comes with further inconveniences for previously verified users who won’t sign up.

Todd Spangler NY Digital Editor If nothing else, $44 billion has bought Twitter power-user Elon Musk status as the No. 1 most-followed account on the social network. As of Thursday morning, Musk had 133.088 million users — up more than 20% since he closed the Twitter deal last October. That pushed the billionaire ahead of the previously most-followed account, that of Barack Obama, who currently has about 133.042 million followers. (To be sure, this is according to the public counters operated by Twitter, which Musk controls.) Musk, a self-proclaimed free-speech “absolutist,” is notoriously fond of posting memes and jokes on Twitter. (Prior to his acquisition, according to Twitter’s legal team, Musk also used the service to disparage the company and its employees.) Musk has claimed he did not buy the company “to make more money” but to “try to help humanity, whom I love.” He also has said he was “obviously overpaying” for Twitter.

Twitter users can expect another string of shake-ups as some features for non-paying accounts will soon be scrapped.

Twitter is now worth less than half of what he paid for it last October, announced last week that the “legacy” verification system is being scrapped on April 1. At that time, account verification — popularly referred to as “blue check status” — will be available only to people who pay for a subscription to “Twitter Blue.”Musk has been threatening to do this since early November, just after he was forced by a lawsuit to take ownership of Twitter after trying to back out of the $44 Billion deal he previously agreed to.

Elon Musk has defended his Twitter subscription plan after it was criticised by Star Trek actor William Shatner.After acquiring the social media platform in late 2022, the billionaire introduced Twitter Blue, a service that allows anyone to purchase a blue tick/verified account for a monthly subscription fee.Previously, blue ticks were typically given to notable accounts, such as high-profile figures, celebrities, major companies, politicians and members of the media.However, as part of his new plan, Musk has warned that these “legacy accounts” – those who received blue ticks before his takeover – will lose their verified status unless they pay the monthly subscription fee.“Hey @elonmusk, what’s this about blue checks going away unless we pay Twitter?” Shatner tweeted Musk on Saturday (March 25).“I’ve been here for 15 years giving my [time] & witty thoughts all for bupkis. Now you’re telling me that I have to pay for something you gave me for free? What is this-the Colombia Records & Tape Club?”In defence of his new program, Musk wrote: “It’s more about treating everyone equally.

Twitter users should brace for a big change coming to the app this week as the company begins phasing out the iconic blue check marks.

premium service championed by Twitter's billionaire owner and chief executive Elon Musk. After months of delay, Musk is gleefully promising that Friday is the deadline for celebrities, journalists and others who'd been verified for free to pony up or lose their legacy status. "It will be glorious," he tweeted Monday, in response to a Twitter user who noted that Friday is also April Fools Day.

Grimes and Elon Musk have revealed they have changed their daughter’s unique name to a single letter. Grimes - real name Claire Boucher - welcomed her daughter Exa Dark Sideræl Musk with Twitter CEO Elon Musk, 51, in December 2021 via surrogacy. And in a recent post on social media, the singer, 35, explained that her daughter is now just named "Y", which is pronounced, "Why".

$44 billion has been to even the playing field between verified and unverified users, believing that the blue check that traditionally comes with accounts belonging to public figures sets a left-leaning, elitist hierarchy on the site that he wants to do away with. While the fix to that hierarchy has seen its fair share of hiccups along the way, including a period of time when anyone could go blue and impersonate a celebrity, Musk announced last week that he’s doing away with unpaid verifications altogether.

Grimes has revealed that she’s renamed her daughter, changing the name from Exa Dark Sideræl to a single letter.The Canadian artist – real name Claire Boucher – shares two children with Twitter CEO and Tesla boss Elon Musk – son X Æ A-Xii, born in May 2020, and daughter Exa Dark Sideræl Musk who arrived December 2021 via surrogate.News of the pair’s second child was accidentally revealed last year during a cover interview with Vanity Fair, when the interviewer noticed the sound of a baby crying while talking to Grimes about her upcoming “space opera”-themed album, ‘Book 1’.Last week, (March 23), the singer shared a rare photo of her daughter on Instagram, posted alongside a picture of herself wearing a red matching onesie.

Todd Spangler NY Digital Editor As Elon Musk promised, Twitter’s previous blue check-mark verification regime will soon be history. The social network, which the mega-billionaire bought last year in a debt-heavy $44 billion deal, announced on Thursday that starting April 1, it will remove the verified check-mark status of accounts that Twitter had been verified as notable before Musk’s takeover unless they have subscribed to Twitter Blue or the business-focused Twitter Verified Organizations plan.On April 1st, we will begin winding down our legacy verified program and removing legacy verified checkmarks. To keep your blue checkmark on Twitter, individuals can sign up for Twitter Blue here: https://t.co/gzpCcwOpLp Organizations can sign up for https://t.co/RlN5BbuGA3… The only individual Twitter users who will have verified blue check-marks are those paying for Twitter Blue, which in the U.S. costs $8/month via the web and $11/month through in-app payment on iOS and Android. Earlier Thursday, the company announced that Twitter Blue was now available worldwide.