‘F*** that, they should pay me’: Stephen King hits back at Elon Musk’s reported plan to charge blue-tickers on Twitter

Musk is reportedly considering charging verified users up to $20 (£17) per month to keep their blue ticks

Stephen King is the latest celebrity to publicly decry rumoured plans to introduce a fee for blue ticks on Twitter after Elon Musk took over the social media platform.

The Tesla founder completed his £38bn Twitter takeover last week and has already dissolved the company’s entire board of directors, naming himself “sole director”.

According to multiple reports, Musk is also strongly considering raising the price of Twitter Blue from $5 (£4.30) to $20 a month (£17), with verified users given 90 days to sign up or lose their blue tick.

Without commenting on the reports explicitly, Musk tweeted Sunday (30 October): “The whole verification process is being revamped right now.”

Responding to the news on Monday (31 October), famed horror author Stephen King tweeted: “$20 a month to keep my blue check? F*** that, they should pay me.”

The Shining writer, who has 6.8 million followers on Twitter, added: “If that gets instituted, I’m gone like Enron.” Enron was an American energy company, which collapsed in 2001 after hiding mountains of debt and toxic assets from auditors.

Stephen King (left) and Elon Musk (Getty Images)

King joins comedian and actor Kathy Burke, who tweeted: “Musk can f*** off with his idea of charging blue-tickers. I give my all to this hell site for FREE. Cheeky b**** should be paying ME. Don’t need the poxy thing anyway.”

She added: “He may take our vibes but he’ll never take our memedom!”

Former US president Donald Trump, however, whose potential return to the platform is the subject of much discussion, celebrated Musk’s purchase of Twitter by posting on his own platform, Truth Social.

“TRUTH SOCIAL has become somewhat of a phenomena. Last week it had bigger numbers than all other platforms, including TikTok, Twitter, Facebook, and the rest. It also looks and works better to my eye. I am very happy that Twitter is now in sane hands, and will no longer be run by Radical Left Lunatics and Maniacs that truly hate our country,” Trump said.

“Twitter must now work hard to rid itself of all of the bots and fake accounts that have hurt it so badly. It will be much smaller, but better. I LOVE TRUTH!”

Trump’s Twitter account was banned following the 6 January Capitol attack.