Elon Musk pays for Shatner, LeBron and King as thousands lose Twitter legacy blue checkmarks

Elon Musk says he personally paid for William Shatner, LeBron James and Stephen King to keep their blue checkmarks as thousands lose their legacy blue checkmarks. Twitter removed the legacy blue tick from verified accounts yesterday.

This comes months after the company’s billionaire CEO Elon Musk announced the date for users to sign up for Twitter Blue, its $8 paid subscription service. After many changes in date, the legacy blue tick suspension came into effect yesterday, 21 April 2023.

A lot of celebrities globally lost their blue tick including Pope Francis, former US President Donald Trump, Microsoft Co-Founder Bill Gates and reality TV star Kim Kardashian. Other African notable people including Tony Elumelu, Peter Obi, Atiku, Tinubu, Goodluck Jonathan have also lost their verified blue ticks from their Twitter accounts.

Not sure why Elon Musk decided to pay for these three people that had previously stated that they were not going to pay for the verification tick

Celebrity author Stephen King had said he wasn’t going to pay for the blue tick. However, he tweeted yesterday saying “My Twitter account says I’ve subscribed to Twitter Blue. I haven’t. My Twitter account says I’ve given a phone number. I haven’t.”

Elon Musk responded tweeting “You’re welcome namaste”

Basketball star Lebron James had also said he wasn’t going to pay for the blue tick, saying “Welp guess my blue will be gone soon cause if you know me I ain’t paying the 5. “

Celebrity actor William Shatner also complained earlier that he wasn’t going to pay for the verification tick.

In 2009, Twitter implemented a blue check mark system to aid users in distinguishing genuine accounts from fake or parody ones, specifically for public figures such as celebrities, politicians, companies, brands, and news organizations. Prior to this, the company did not impose any fees for the verification process.

After taking over the social media company, Musk said that Twitter’s old system of verification was “corrupt” and opened up blue check-marks to any paying customer — a move to democratize the status symbol. However any people believed that Musk asked people to pay so as to generate a much-needed new revenue stream. “Far too many corrupt legacy Blue ‘verification’ checkmarks exist, so no choice but to remove legacy Blue in coming months,” Musk had tweeted in November.