Twitter begins offering $7.99-a-month verification subscriptions

Twitter announced on Saturday that it would begin charging customers $7.99 a month to receive a verification check mark on their profiles, one of a raft of product changes that the company has been discussing since Elon Musk’s takeover a little over a week ago.

The announcement was included in notes accompanying a new update to the Twitter app that appeared in Apple’s App Store. The notes that the paid verification system was now a feature of the website’s subscription service, Twitter Blue. “Power to the people,” the announcement said.

“Your account will get a blue checkmark, just like the celebrities, companies, and politicians you follow.” To fund his $44 billion acquisition of Twitter, Musk loaded the firm with $13 billion in debt, which comes with over $1 billion a year in interest payments. That has put Twitter under enormous pressure to cut costs and raise revenue. This past week, Twitter laid off roughly half the company’s workforce, or about 3,700 jobs.