Elon Musk Admits Twitter Employees Sold Verification Blue Ticks For $15,000

Ever since Elon Musk took over Twitter, it's been chaos all around. From the introduction of monthly fee for the blue tick (verification) and new rules surrounding account suspension, it appears that Elon Musk is making sweeping changes at Twitter.

But recently, Elon Musk made a startling claim - or really, he responded to one. A user on Twitter claimed that "Twitter employees were selling verification for upwards of $15,000."

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.

¡ª Chairman (@WSBChairman) November 5, 2022

"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," the user added.

Elon Musk responded to this claim, offering a brief and ominous "yup" in response to these very serious allegations.

Reuters

What's with verification?

In a different Tweet, the new Twitter CEO explained how easy it has remained to get a blue tick verification badge on the platform using third-party apps. "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," he wrote.

Some receipts from just now pic.twitter.com/WXV8aEq4ds

¡ª Chairman (@WSBChairman) November 5, 2022

AFP

Also read: Elon Musk Changes His Bio As 'Twitter Complaint Hotline Operator' Amid Criticism Over Blue Tick Fee

"Piggybacking off payment system plus Apple/Android is a much better way to ensure verification," Musk added.

Reuters

These Tweets were in response to Shibetoshi Nakamoto, the creator of Dogecoin, who opposed the $8 monthly verification fee on Twitter. Twitter CEO Elon Musk took over the company just last week after completing a $44 billion acquisition.

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.

¡ª Elon Musk (@elonmusk) November 5, 2022

Also read: Employees Were Abruptly Logged Out Of Systems As Elon Musk Sacks Almost Entire India Staff: Report

Besides changing how verification works, Musk has also undertaken mass layoffs at the company, letting go of as much as 50% of its workforce. But now, it appears that Twitter is urging many of its fired employees to return. Why? We'll never know, as is true with all-things-Elon-Musk.

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