UPDATE 11/1: Musk has seemingly confirmed that it's thinking about requiring a subscription to retain a blue checkmark. In response to author Stephen King saying he would be "gone like Enron" if Twitter charged $20 per month for a verified account, Musk responded: "We need to pay the bills somehow! Twitter cannot rely entirely on advertisers. How about $8?"
Original Story:
Elon Musk isn't hanging around making changes to his newly acquired social network, and the Twitter Blue subscription is expected to quadruple in price next month.
As The Verge reports, people familiar with the matter claim that the optional Twitter Blue subscription, which currently costs $4.99 per month, is expected to increase to $19.99 and will be required if a user wants to keep their blue checkmark verification. If the price increase does happen, it comes only a few months after Musk stated that Twitter Blue costs too much.
Musk has apparently set an internal deadline for Twitter's engineers to have the revamped Blue subscription ready by Nov. 7. If they don't, they are fired, but are being aided by Tesla engineers brought in as advisors. Musk has apparently been working late every night and throughout the weekend implementing changes to the service.
For existing Twitter Blue subscribers, the planned increase in price may be too high to stomach. The current premium features offered with the subscription include ad-free articles, bookmark folders, custom app icons, themes, custom navigation, top articles, Reader, and Undo Tweets. It's unclear if all of these will remain available at the higher price point.
Blue checkmark verification is a feature that's currently independent of the subscription, but not for much longer. It's thought that any Twitter account with a checkmark will be given 90 days to subscriber to Twitter Blue or their verification will disappear. How many will opt to spend $240 a year to keep it?
If Elon Musk wanted people to take notice of his Twitter acquisition, this news certainly had the desired effect. However, it looks as though the billionaire is only just getting started. A tweet by Musk earlier today posed the question "Bring back Vine?"