Twitter to charge businesses $1,000 per month for Gold checkmark, as Twitter finally breaks even

On april 1st Twitter introduced a $1,000 (£950) per month fee to businesses in a bid to increase revenue for the Gold verified checkmark, along with a $50 per month charge for affiliated Blue tick accounts and also introducing a Grey checkmark for government and multilateral accounts. And Musk has tweeted that "Final date for removing legacy Blue checks is 4/20". For people wanting to keep the blue tick on Twitter, they will have to pay.

Having made 6,500 Twitter staff redundant and now running Twitter with just a reduced team of 1,500, Musk confesses these staff cuts were necessary to avert bankruptcy. In a recent interview Musk had stated that Twitter had only 'four months to live' if major changes hadn't been put in place to reduce costs, reduce staff numbers and stave off any risk of bankruptcy.

The most visible cost saving being reducing staff numbers from 8,000 down to 1,500. Musk also said that taking over Twitter had been painful and that he also felt that he had been 'under constant attack'. With the new leaner Twitter, it is finally in a position to break even.

Twitter Inc, the company that previously owned Twitter, has now been shut down and incorporated into Elon Musk's own company - X Corp - the parent company with SpaceX, Tesla, Neurolink and now Twitter, under its wing. Also to be added under this parent company will be a new 'everything app'.

Twitter had previously said that the Blue legacy checkmarks would be removed on April 1st, but many have remained in place after this date causing some confusion. The Blue tick is now simply an indicator that an account is subscribed to Twitter Blue with a monthly cost of £11, which gives subscribers custom app icons, an undo tweet after posting it and also the ability to edit tweets, once sent.

Now the cost savings are now in place and Musk is now confident that Twitter is 'breaking even' and with these new 'legacy' Blue, Grey and Gold ticks now chargeable, we wait to see what other changes Musk wants to do to Twitter.