Elon Musk Tweeted on Sunday, “Whole verification process is being revamped right now”. Elon Musk has advised Twitter employees to make a new verification and subscription system and launch it before the 7th of November, Elon Musk has also threatened the employees that if they fail to do so, they will be fired. Though Musk decided against giving any further details of the new system, the expected system would have a $20/Month subscription fee, and only the accounts that buy the subscription will get the verification check on their account.
Twitter’s new ‘Chief Twit’ is currently planning to charge $19.99 for the new Twitter Blue subscription because he wants to get the money payback quickly and he might get it in some years if he succeeds in his plans. Under the current plan, verified users would have 90 days to subscribe or lose their blue checkmark. On Sunday, employees working on the project were told that they need to meet a deadline of November 7th to launch the feature or they will be fired.
People are questioning the practicality of the decision by Elon Musk as to who would be willing to pay $240/Month just for the verification mark? And is it even worth it for common people to pay that amount for just some additional features? Elon’s thinking would obviously be to make more revenue from the company so that it could honor its $44 Billion investment. Twitter’s revenue per month, based on its Q2 earnings report, is around $1.2 billion, so Musk is looking to generate around $600 million per month in subscriptions. At $4.99 per month, the current price of Twitter Blue would take around 120 million users signing on for the service – over half of Twitter’s active user base.
Thus far, the equivalent of 20k Twitter users are paying for Twitter Blue, based on its subscription revenue data, so it’s a fair way off target just yet. But increasing the price could be one way to fast-track that, and I guess if people are willing to pay. Elon has a reputation as being a taskmaster of a manager and driving his employees to deliver. Seems like he may be trying to set a precedent with his first directive at Twitter.
Musk is trying to cash Twitter and get the money flowing in as soon as possible as he has invested so much in it. Even after the transaction of $44B, he fired Parag Agrawal, who succeeded Jack Dorsey as Twitter CEO, and chief financial officer Ned Segal, both of who were in the building at the time and escorted out by security. Vijaya Gadde, the company’s policy chief whom Musk had publicly criticized, was also ousted. Sean Edgett, the general counsel, is gone, too, The New York Times reports. : Agrawal got $38.7 million, Segal got $25.4 million, Gadde got $12.5 million, and Personette, who tweeted yesterday about how excited she was for Musk’s takeover, got $11.2 million.
The execs received handsome payouts for their trouble, Musk originally offered to buy Twitter in April, then changed his mind and tried to back out in May. Then, he changed his mind again on October 4th, filing a letter with the Securities and Exchange Commission affirming his commitment to the original deal. Musk has been meeting with Twitter employees this week and is expected to address them on Friday now that his $44 billion takeover is done.
Musk had tons of issues before buying Twitter, the billionaire first announced buying the company in April. However, after just one month, Musk decided to back out of the deal. Fast forward to October, he changed his mind again and owns the company now. After acquiring Twitter, Musk has been making some humorous tweets and giving people a laugh about the whole situation. “The bird is freed,” wrote Elon Musk on his Twitter today, referring to his buying Twitter.
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