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The Future. It’s possible that Elon Musk’s rule atop Twitter — and the many unpopular changes he has implemented —has turned the company so toxic that paying for a blue check is a badge of dishonor. The whole fiasco may become a textbook case of a CEO’s ability to personally damage a brand’s offerings.
Verified problem
Elon Musk’s overhaul of its verified checkmark program is not going as planned.
- Despite legacy blue checks being removed over the weekend, many celebrities with over a million followers (Stephen King, LeBron James) and some deceased ones (Chadwick Boseman, Kobe Bryant) still had theirs despite not paying for a Twitter Blue subscription.
- Turns out that Musk decided to personally pay for some of the subscriptions — a decision that angered the famous accounts and ticked off those that did for it.
Unfortunately, this means that Musk has hurt his reputation enough in the past year to make paying $8 for Blue uncool. For many, not paying and letting your check disappear (which, according to the platform’s API, is exactly what most legacy blue checks have done) has become a source of pride.
If Musk’s goal was truly to turn around Twitter’s business fortunes, then things are really not going well.
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