Well it’s been a dramatic week on Twitter, and that’s saying something.
It’s only been a few days since Elon Musk acquired Twitter for real, but it already feels like oh so much longer than that. We’ve since seen top execs fired, bad sink puns, Musk casually spitballing over whether or not to bring back Vine with MrBeast, and the possible introduction of a $20 a month fee to keep your little blue tick intact.
As you can imagine, the responses to that ranged from jokes to outrage. One of those in the latter category was horror author Stephen King, who made his feelings on the subject fairly clear.
« $20 a month to keep my blue check? Fuck that, they should pay me. » wrote King. « If that gets instituted, I’m gone like Enron. »
Musk, clearly struggling between the pull of a new revenue stream and the fear of pushing celebs off his platform, responded late Monday night.
« We need to pay the bills somehow! » he wrote. « Twitter cannot rely entirely on advertisers. How about $8? »
The new Twitter owner then followed it up by saying it’s « the only way to defeat bots & trolls, » and that he’d explain the rationale in longer form before it’s implemented.
King has yet to respond, but we’ll update this story if he does. The two have previously shared a fairly cheery exchange about King’s Tesla, so you never know.
