Musk got into a spat with superleft Stephen King when he asked if he would pay $8 a month for blue check verification. “It ain’t the money, it’s the principle of the thing.” There are currently 423,000 verified users and at $8 per, that’s only $3.3 million of additional revenue to a company that generated $4.5 billion last year. The goal isn’t to collect this money. This option would potentially be open to the 237 million users who are currently peasants. The $8 will get you posting benefits to your account like a blue check mark and less ads. Current Twitter advertisers are being scared off that Twitter is not going to be a safe place for their brands.

What Do I Make of This?

Do you see the people? They’re at the bottom. If you don’t like Elon Musk, and you’re part of the people, how can you not like him? He’s the only person who believes that you should have a voice. Does he think that he should profit by giving you that voice? Probably. That’s fine though. If I can pay $8 a month, and people can start following me because I’m not on Twitter’s banned list because I have Republican values, that’s a good thing. Easy behind the computer, I don’t think I’m shadow banned. However, I do find it novel that Elon wants to create a content moderation council that has a wide range of viewpoints. This is compared to the current system that moderates out any right opinions they disagree with.

I understand the upheaval about Elon taking over because he’s a capitalist who believes in free market and speech principals. The people who don’t like the idea of free speech, and the people above our visibility line, want nothing more than for you to shut up and pay your taxes. If you can see that Elon is helping you, and I don’t believe anyone else is anyway, I’m looking forward to the changes moving forward.