A fight on Twitter between Stephen King Y Elon Musk sounds like material straight out of a piece of fanfiction. However, this is precisely what has happened in the last few hours.
All after Musk, owner of Tesla Motors, SpaceX, The Boring Company and apparently an increasingly long etcetera, will end up buying the social network for a monumental amount of money.
His first act upon entering the company’s headquarters was to literally carry a sink. But now from a distance we see that this was a sort of comical distractor for everything she started to do.
He fired the CEO of the platform, along with key pieces of the legal team. He later dissolved the board of directors and immediately declared himself CEO before the stock market regulatory authorities.
That was a fast, extreme and relatively unusual high for the industry. But apparently in reality it was only the beginning of even more extreme approaches.
We are talking about measures that would directly impact the users of the social network, specifically their pockets. So, as expected, there were immediate reactions and even a lawsuit,
Elon Musk vs. Stephen King: the story behind
Shortly after establishing himself as the maximum leader of Twitter, he began to circulate the report A subscription of USD $20 per month for a Premium version of Twitter would now be charged.
The disturbing point is that one of the services unlocked by paying that cost would be the blue mark verification that authenticates those accounts that are official or that directly belong to real public figures.
The first celebrity to openly complain about that monthly charge was himself Stephen King, legendary author of best sellers like The Shining and IT, who announced that he would leave the platform if this proved true. Elon Musk was quick to respond and confirm everything:
We need to pay the bills somehow! Twitter cannot rely entirely on advertisers. How about $8?
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) November 1, 2022
Musk argues that the measure would be the only way to end bots and trolls on this social network, but he restated the figure so that its cost is USD $8 instead of USD $20.
Even so, the rain of criticism has not stopped, especially considering what is the original meaning of that verification mark on a platform where false accounts and information distortion happen daily.
Musk later delved into his project and confirmed that there will be another brand to identify public figures, and that will apparently be independent of the monthly subscription system.
So far King has not responded.