Twitter removed the blue checkmark on Thursday for all users who have chosen not to pay the monthly cost for it for it.
Notable academics, celebrities, journalists and public figures, who had the verified status and now do not, include Beyonce, Donald Trump, Pope Francis, Mark Hamill, Bill Gates, Twitter founder Jack Dorsey and many others. Before Thursday, Twitter under CEO Elon Musk has considered these users as having “legacy verified accounts.”
However, not all celebrities have lost their verified status, as Musk tweeted that he is paying personally for Twitter Blue subscriptions for actor William Shatner, athlete LeBron James and author Stephen King.
Before Musk’s revelation, King took to Twitter stating that his “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,” to which Musk replied: “You’re welcome namaste.”
King had previously called Musk a “terrible fit for Twitter.”
Elon Musk reveals he is ‘personally paying’ the Twitter Blue subscriptions of some celebrities to keep their checkmark, such as Lebron James and Stephen King. pic.twitter.com/ulLvwOyLIn
— Pop Base (@PopBase) April 20, 2023
James tweeted last month on the possibility of losing his verification status, saying: “Welp guess my blue ✔️ will be gone soon cause if you know me I ain’t paying the 5.” Shatner last month had also complained about having to pay to keep his checkmark.
“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.”
Stephen King
Some Twitter accounts include checkmarks with different colors other than blue. For example, businesses and organizations have a gold checkmark and political figures have a gray checkmark.
Welp guess my blue ✔️ will be gone soon cause if you know me I ain’t paying the 5. ♂️
— LeBron James (@KingJames) March 31, 2023
It’s more about treating everyone equally. There shouldn’t be a different standard for celebrities imo. https://t.co/rWi99sGPdq
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) March 27, 2023
Before the checkmark was taken away from legacy-verified accounts, Twitter had about 300,000 users with the mark, Ynet reported.
