Elon Musk hits back at Stephen King after author suggested he should donate blue tick cost to charity

Since Elon Musk completed his $44 billion takeover of Twitter last year, to say that it has been eventful is putting it mildly.

From the countless staff lay-offs by the company, to the many changes Musk has made to Twitter policy, the social media company certainly looks rather different now as compared to this time last year.

One of the features that the Tesla founder has changed, for which he has received heavy criticism, is the infamous blue ticks.

Pre-Musk the verified badges on the social media platform were awarded to users and companies who have a big following, but that has somewhat changed now.

Both the blue mark on single users’ accounts and the yellow one on companies’ pages are now not obtained by going through a verification process.

Instead, users who want to obtain a badge for their Twitter account now need to pay $8 a month for the privilege.

Instagram/@elonmusk

That is just for single users though, companies will have to pay a whopping $1,000 for the tick.

On Friday (21 April), Musk seemingly did a mammoth swoop on Twitter, removing verification badges from around one million users.

However, some have since had it reinstated or not even removed at all, meaning they have the privilege while everyone else has to pay for it.

One of those is the legendary author Stephen King, who made a tweet on the 20 April to clarify that he had not subscribed to Twitter's new subscription, despite having the blue tick on his account.

"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," he wrote.

Musk actually replied to the tweet saying: "You’re welcome namaste."

The conversation then went a bit quiet for a few days, before King replied to Musk once more.

He said: "I think Mr. Musk should give my blue check to charity. I recommend the Prytula Foundation, which provides lifesaving services in Ukraine. It's only $8, so perhaps Mr. Musk could add a bit more."

Twitter/@StephenKing

From that, it certainly sounds like King is displeased with the gift from the Twitter head-honcho.

But Musk has since replied to the author in true Musk style.

"I’ve donated $100M to Ukraine, how much have you donated?(We turned down the DoD money btw)," he replied.

Twitter/@elonmusk

Whether this is the end of things remains to be seen, but if King does hit back once more, we'll be looking at some rather interesting Twitter beef fairly soon.