Many others, including author Stephen King, expressed their opinions on the matter and were forthright in their responses. “How much does it cost to keep my blue check?” Monday, King tweeted. “Fuck that, I should get paid. I’ll be gone, just like Enron, if that becomes law. “It ain’t the money, it’s the principal of the thing,” he said in response.

We need to find a way to pay the debts, Musk wrote to King late on Monday night. Twitter can’t only rely on sponsors. Consider $8.

We need to pay the bills somehow! Twitter cannot rely entirely on advertisers. How about $8?

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) November 1, 2022

Before this is put into action, I will elaborate on the rationale, Musk said. The bots and trolls can only be eliminated in this manner.

Musk altered his bio’s title from “Chief Twit” to “Twitter Complaint Hotline Operator” on Monday. After firing previous CEO Parag Agrawal and other top Twitter executives and taking the company private, Musk declared himself CEO in SEC filings. He also disbanded the previous Twitter board.