If reports are to be believed, Elon Musk, Twitter’s new CEO, intends to implement a $20 monthly fee for verified accounts.
According to documents and interviews released by The Verge, the “directive is to transform Twitter Blue, the company’s optional, $4.99 a month membership that unlocks more functionality, into a more costly subscription that also certifies users.”
We haven’t finalized the price of the new Twitter Blue just yet, but we expect it to be about $19.99.
If customers who have already been verified do not upgrade to the more costly $19.99 plan within 90 days, their verification status will be removed.
Employees who fail to have the new product ready by the end of the first week of November, so the story goes, will be laid off.
On Monday night, Musk tweeted that the authentication process was being “rebuilt from the bottom up.”
Musk is rumored to be planning a massive layoff of Twitter employees after taking control of the firm late last week.
The New York Times stated that Musk “directed the cutbacks across the firm, with certain teams to be reduced more than others” and that “certain managers [were] being urged to prepare lists of personnel to depart.”
After six months of stalling, Musk finally closed on the $44 billion purchase on Thursday.
A senior member of Musk’s team allegedly warned Ross Gerber, CEO of Gerber Kawasaki Wealth & Investment Management, that the business would lay off all 7,500 of its employees.
According to what Gerber was informed, “anticipate somewhere about 50% of folks to be laid off.”
Compensation in the form of stock awards is frequent, and it looks that layoffs will occur at around the same time.
Initial reports this week suggested that Musk planned to fire as much as 75% of his employees.
According to the Washington Post, immediately after Musk took over as CEO, he fired three senior executives with left-leaning political views: chief financial officer Ned Segal, chief legal officer Parag Agrawal, and chief security officer Vijaya Gadde.