Twitter owner and CEO Elon Musk said he is personally footing the bill for some Twitter accounts to retain their blue check verification.
After a few false starts, on Thursday Twitter began to deliver on its promise to strip the blue checks from accounts that don't pay a monthly fee for them. Under the original blue check system, Twitter had approximately 300,000 verified users, many of which were public figures, journalists, and athletes.
Shortly after Musk purchased the company in October, he said that only those users who subscribed to Twitter Blue for $8 per month would be verified with a checkmark.
Some of those who lost their checkmarks Thursday didn't seem keen on subscribing to keep it.
The Verge editor Alex Heath reported that LeBron James received a Blue subscription "on behalf of Elon Musk" after the Lakers star said he would not pay for the blue checkmark. According to Heath, James declined but was verified anyway.
Musk responded to The Verge's report, tweeting that he's footing the bill for some accounts.
"I'm paying for a few personally," he said.
Bestselling horror author Stephen King confirmed to The Verge that he did not pay to keep his account's blue checkmark.
"My Twitter account says I've subscribed to Twitter Blue. I haven't," King tweeted Thursday. "My Twitter account says I've given a phone number. I haven't."
"You're welcome namaste," Musk replied, with a praying hands emoji.
In October, King railed against paying for verification on the platform.
"$20 a month to keep my blue check?" King tweeted about the initially proposed higher price point. "F*** that, they should pay me. If that gets instituted, I'm gone like Enron."
Musk's decision to pay for some accounts to keep their legacy blue check contradicts his pledge to level the playing field as CEO of Twitter.
"Twitter's current lords & peasants system for who has or doesn't have a blue checkmark is bull----," he tweeted days after acquiring the company. "Power to the people! Blue for $8/month."
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