Elon Musk lays out his ideas for Twitter’s new verification system

Elon Musk laid out a series of ideas Tuesday for a new user verification process for Twitter, which he recently acquired for $44 billion.

In a thread of tweets, Musk criticized the current system, which gives a blue check mark, or verification, to notable users like politicians, members of the press, executives and other people and organizations. It has been used as a way for users to know that the Blue check mark means the account is legitimate. Other social networks, like Meta‘s Facebook and Instagram, have similar verification systems.

Musk said he will give “power to the people” by offering verification through Twitter Blue for $8 a month. He said participants will get priority in mentions, replies and search, receive half as many ads and will be able to tweet long videos and audio.

Musk also said Twitter Blue subscribers will be given a “paywall bypass” for publishers that are willing to work with Twitter. He added that this method will “destroy the bots” by increasing the “cost of crime on Twitter by several orders of magnitude” and that any Blue account that engages with spam will be suspended.

It is unclear if these changes will actually be implemented.

Musk’s thread follows an earlier report from The Verge Sunday that said Musk was considering charging as much as $19.99 a month for the Twitter Blue subscription. The Twitter employees working on the project were reportedly told that they have until Nov. 7 to launch the feature, or they will be fired, according to the report.

Musk, who is CEO of automaker Tesla and reusable rocket maker SpaceX, completed the acquisition of Twitter on Oct. 28 and made his mark there immediately. He fired the company’s CEO, chief financial officer, policy and legal team leaders right away, and dissolved Twitter’s board of directors.

— CNBC’s Lora Kolodny contributed to this report.