Elon Musk Angers William Shatner Over Twitter Blue Mark

William Shatner is unhappy with one of Elon Musk’s recent Twitter policies. He went on Twitter to express his displeasure over the blue check mark. The paid subscription adds a blue checkmark to user accounts.

Before Musk purchased Twitter, prominent politicians, businesses, journalists, and personalities received the blue check for free.

Currently, the monthly cost for the blue badge is $7.99. Users with the blue checkmark associated with their accounts before Twitter began charging for it was permitted to retain it for a grace period.

This grace period ends on April 1, when all legacy checkmarks will be removed.

“Hey @elonmusk, what’s the deal with blue checks disappearing if we don’t pay Twitter? Shatner tweeted, “I’ve spent 15 years contributing my time and witty thoughts for nothing.” Now you’re telling me to pay for something you gave me for free? What is this, the Columbia Records and Tapes Club?

Hey @elonmusk what’s this about blue checks going away unless we pay Twitter? I’ve been here for 15 years giving my ⏰ & witty thoughts all for bupkis. Now you’re telling me that I have to pay for something you gave me for free? What is this-the Colombia Records & Tape Club?🙄

— William Shatner (@WilliamShatner) March 26, 2023

The advantage of checkboxes is that they indicate to platform users that the information posted by an account originates from the person or organization claiming to be behind the account.

In theory, the checkmark lends credibility to a Twitter account’s tweets.

Shatner’s comment was met with responses from Twitter users.

@jsatz tweeted, “You have been such a pleasure to read on Twitter, @WilliamShatner.” “However, Musk is riding this company down like Slim Pickens in Dr. Strangelove, destroying what made the site worth reading and posting to.”

“I came here specifically to read William Shatner’s tweets,” wrote @Pat_Kc. Without Shatner, Twitter has no value.

Twitter is worth only 20 Billion.

Elon Musk admitted in an email about employee stock grants that Twitter is worth less than half of what he paid.

On Saturday, the managing editor of Platformer, Zo Schiffer, tweeted that Twitter had undergone a radical but necessary change because it was “about four months away from running out of money. Now, he says, employees’ financial incentives should be aligned with the company.”

She tweeted that the value of the stock grants was “$20 billion.” In late October, Musk paid $44 billion to acquire control of Twitter.

Schiffer tweeted that Musk told staff he saw a “clear but difficult path” to a valuation of $250 billion.

The Information also reported on the email in which Musk instructed employees that they could sell their stock holdings for cash “every six months based on a third-party valuation” during “liquidity events.”

This process would be comparable to the one used by SpaceX, in which Musk stated: “achieves the public company advantage of having a liquid stock but without the stock price chaos and lawsuit burdens of a public company.”

According to The Information, he also wants employees to view Twitter as an “inverse startup” of the thousands of jobs eliminated since he took over. According to CNBC, Twitter has as few as 1,300 employees, down from about 7,500.

According to The Verge, following the last round of layoffs in February, Musk sent a memo with the subject line “Performance Awards” to the remaining employees, stating that they would receive “very significant” performance-based stock awards.

In the memo, he added, “Last week, we completed a difficult organizational overhaul aimed at improving future execution, using as much feedback as possible from the entire company.” Those who remain are held in high regard by those in their vicinity.

Musk reportedly emailed Twitter employees early Wednesday morning to remind them of the company’s remote working policy.