Elon Musk confirms Twitter will charge for a blue tick – and argues with Stephen King about it

Elon Musk has confirmed that Twitter is planning to charge people to be verified – and is bartering with Stephen King about how much it should cost.

The discussion between the pair came about after reports suggested that one of Mr Musk’s plans to generate revenue for his newly acquired company was to charge for the blue ticks, which indicate a given account has been verified.

It led to immediate outcry from users of the platform, who argued that the move will just amplify spam accounts and that users should not have to pay for the security offered by the verification process. One of those critics was author Stephen King, who is among the site’s most prominent users.