Elon Musk To Charge Kenyans Verified On Twitter Ksh2,500

Elon Musk, the world's richest person, is set to make more money from users on Twitter, just three days after he bought the platform for Ksh5.3 trillion.

A report by The Verge on Sunday, October 30 hinted at plans to have all users verified on the platform to pay Ksh2,500 (USD20) per month upon being enrolled on a monthly subscription service.

The tech news outlet indicated that Musk had ordered employees working on the project to meet the deadline of Monday, November 7 to have the feature launched or risk losing their jobs.

A screenshot of Twitter Verified account. /FILE

In addition, those currently verified on the platform would have 90 days to subscribe to the new service or lose their blue tick badges. 

“The whole verification process is being revamped right now," Musk tweeted on Monday, October 31. The billionaire had hinted at restructuring the social media giant months before his takeover, and one of the areas that he would look at was Twitter's verification of accounts and handling of bots.

The verification process would be incorporated into Twitter Blue, a monthly subscription that gives the most engaged people on Twitter exclusive access to premium features. Currently, the service is available on Twitter for iOS, Android and the web in the US, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand. 

Anyone who wanted to opt in to the exclusive service was paying Ksh605 per month but with Musk's takeover, the amount has been increased to Ksh2,500 per month.

Since the introduction of the blue badge in 2009, there were roughly 360,000 verified accounts by May 2021 according to Vox. The badge was introduced to show other Twitter users that the account genuinely belongs to the person whose name it is in.

Among the users who have been verified by the platform include politicians, celebrities, presidents, and journalists among others to enhance their credibility and increase their presence on the platform.

In the event the new feature is rolled out, it will be Twitter's first major change by Musk since he took over. Earlier, he had to make a series of changes to its workforce, with its top executives not spared.

Former CEO Parag Agrawal, former CFO Ned Segal and former Chief Legal Officer Vijaya Gadde were fired by Musk immediately after he took over, and they would walk out the door with nearly Ksh22.7 billion of Musk's money.

After the ouster, he tweeted "The bird is freed," which is an indication of his plan to introduce free speech to the platform.

With the help of Tesla engineers he has brought into Twitter as advisors, he’s also planning to fire staff en masse, with a focus on middle managers and engineers who haven’t recently contributed to the code base.

Those job cuts are expected to begin this week with managers already creating lists of employees to cut.

Elon Musk laughing during a past conference. /SKY NEWS