Beyonce, Harry Styles and more lose blue ticks as Elon Musk admits he’s 'personally' paying some on Twitter

Since taking over the social media platform Twitter, Elon Musk has caused quite a stir. Especially with the announcement that he would start charging people for a blue tick (verification of authentic profile). 

Many celebrities were outraged by this so much they declined to pay the fee of $8 per month or $84 per year. Singers Beyoncé, Lady Gaga, Harry Styles and so many more celebs have had their blue tick taken away. 

But it was revealed that a few lucky A-Listers are having their blue tick paid for by Elon himself. 

The Twitter chief admitted that he is “personally’ paying for the verification badges on actor William Shatner, author Stephen King, and basketball player LeBron James profiles. Elon commented on a tweet by Daily News claiming “some celebrities had been offered complimentary subscriptions”. 

Elon confirmed he was only paying for the three and wrote “Just Shatner, LeBron and King” All three celebrities have previously tweeted their disapproval about the move to charge for the verification which could be why the multi-millionaire decided to pay for them. 

In a bizarre twist it seems that author Stephen King was completely unaware that Elon would be paying for his blue tick. In a hilarious tweet the horror writer wrote “ My Twitter account says I’ve subscribed to Twitter Blue, “I haven’t. My Twitter account says I’ve given a phone number. I haven’t.” Elon replied “You’re welcome namaste”

I can understand why he decided to charge for the verification he’s a business at the end of the day. Twitter has an estimated 450 million users per month and if all of them paid for a blue tick at $8 a month he would earn over an estimated $3 billion and 650 million dollars per month. 

Ok, I get it now it's not that celebrities are being cheap not wanting to pay for the subscription they obviously just don't want to pay for his next SpaceX launch.

But having every account with a verification badge (myself included as I decided to trial the blue badge) takes away the point of it. 

The blue tick was a clear sign to everyone that the profile you were viewing had been verified as the genuine account. Now everyone can have a badge so many fake accounts could be seen as genuine. However the blue tick next to my twitter handle does look pretty good so I doubt I will be getting rid of it.