Elon Musk hints Twitter workers demand $15,000 to verify users

Twitter owner, Elon Musk, has alleged that some workers at the social media company were charging users thousands of dollars to get them verified on the networking platform.

Musk made the revelation amid mixed reactions to his plan to start charging users of the verified badge $8 to maintain the ‘blue tick’, and also charge $19.99 for ‘Twitter Blue’, a feature that offers exclusive access to premium features that let you customize your Twitter experience and undo tweets.

In a tweet on Saturday, a Twitter user, WSBChairman, known for sounding the alarm on activities on Wall Street, revealed that workers at Twitter made it difficult to obtain verification tick through standard application for persons like him.

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.”

Read also:$4m per day loss caused sack, Elon Musk says, as advertisers boycott Twitter

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.

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