Twitter: Elon Musk clarifies what perks may come with 'blue for $8' verification

Elon Musk shared more details about his plan to charge Twitter users a monthly fee to maintain their account verification.

Video Transcript

RACHELLE AKUFFO: All right, well, details trickling out on Elon Musk's latest plans for Twitter. Just moments ago, he tweeted as part of a thread, power to the people, Blue for $8 a month. Musk adding that Blue users will get priority in replies, mentions, search, ability to post long video and audio, and half as many advertisements. Musk also including that if a paid Blue account engages in spam or a scam, that account will be suspended.

Seems like, obviously, every day something seems to be trickling out. We know there was a lot of back and forth between him and author Stephen King about the price, and clearly settling on $8 here. Is that reasonable? Is that something that you guys would be willing to pay, Seana?

SEANA SMITH: I would not be willing to pay it. I don't know how much-- I would not be willing to pay much. I know that a lot of people out there were saying that they would pay a lot more than $8 a month. I think that that is still very expensive. It adds up very quickly.

But my takeaway, though, is, just from Elon Musk taking over at Twitter and the news flow and the changes that we have seen in just the past couple of days, he certainly is not wasting any time laying out his vision. He's making some changes. He's making known what he wants to do. We know subscription growth, Dave, has been something that has been very important to him, something he's talked about when it comes to the future of Twitter. So not necessarily a big surprise. $8, though, a little steep for me.

DAVE BRIGGS: A little steep for me. I'm out on that. No, thank you, although, again, we've pointed this out before. A lot of people would pay 20, 30, 40, 50. And Steve Yang yesterday said he'd pay $100 a month, the founder and investor. So look, I think that is a lot of money, but if you can, the poll that they put out, there investor Jason Calacanis, 83% said they would pay 0 for Twitter Blue or verification, but 10% of the 202 million people that voted said they would pay 5 bucks a month. An additional 2% said they'd pay 10 bucks a month.

So I'm just ballpark figures here, Rachelle. There is a potential for north of 100 million bucks a month in revenue if that poll is at all correct. So hey, you've got to give Elon credit for figuring some way to bring in some revenue. Again, I think the vast majority would be in line with that poll, saying, no, thanks, I won't pay a dime. But we didn't get your take. I think you'd pay nothing, right?

RACHELLE AKUFFO: Well, you already know I'd pay nothing. I will say just as a quick caveat, though, they did say it would be cheaper, depending on where in the world you are. So if you're in a country where you don't earn as much, he did say that they would actually adjust that pricing even lower as well.