Twitter is reportedly considering charging businesses on their platform $1000 a month to retain their gold verified checkmarks. In a recent leak from a Twitter staff to an unknown organization in which it was offered ‘early access’ to ‘Verification For Organizations’. In the email which was dated 2nd February 2023 and was then shared by a social media analyst Matt Navarra, the staff member, Evan Jones, quoted the same $1000 cost of subscription and offered the organization a ‘gold’ checkmark in return.

Companies that fail to pay the $1000 fee will automatically lose their gold badges although its not stated when this would happen. It will cost any business $1000 a month to have a gold verification badge and $50 a month for each ‘affiliated account’. The decision was made after a few months when Elon Musk made the controversial decision to start charging ordinary Twitter-users $8 a month for its classic blue mark checks, which were previously given out for free to whomever was deemed eligible. The introduction of the $8 subscription happened around the same time businesses and organizations were assigned the new gold checkmarks and new square profile pictures, which were previously round profile pictures.

Elon Musk is the new owner of Twitter and CEO and is now trying to boost the revenue and to try turn the company profitable. Elon musk made a mass layoff that saw Twitter’s workforce halve in size from around 7,500 before the acquisition.