Musk on Twitter Blue: Cut Price, Ban Ads, Allow Dogecoin Payments

Elon Musk, the new biggest shareholder, has said there should be several changes to the Twitter Blue premium subscription service, including cutting the price, banning ads, giving an option to pay in crypto and more, Reuters writes.

Musk just recently took a 9.2% stake in Twitter and got a seat on the board of directors.

The move has led some to ponder the future of the platform.

Twitter Blue debuted in June 2021 and is the first subscription service on the platform, offering exclusive, premium features on a monthly subscription basis.

Musk, who is also the head of the electric vehicle maker Tesla, said users signing up should pay much less than the current $3 a month — and that everyone signing up should get the “blue checkmark” signifying authenticated accounts.

“Price should probably be ~$2/month, but paid 12 months up front & account doesn’t get checkmark for 60 days (watch for credit card chargebacks) & suspended with no refund if used for scam/spam,” Musk said in a tweet.

He also said there should be no ads, as corporations’ power “to dictate policy is greatly enhanced if Twitter depends on advertising money to survive.” He also said people should be able to pay with dogecoin if they wanted.

Twitter lets people tip their favorite content creators in bitcoin, and last year said it planned to support NFT authentications.

Last week, PYMNTS wrote that Musk’s buying a stake in Twitter had sent the social media site’s stock to $49.34 per share in premarket trading — a 26% surge, according to the reports.

Read on: Twitter Shares Skyrocket as Elon Musk Takes $2.9B Stake

Musk now holds 73,486,938 shares of common stock in the company.

The stake is worth $2.9 billion, based on Twitter’s closing price of $39.31 per share on April 1.

Musk has often been critical of Twitter and said he’s considered rolling out his own social media platform in the past.