Love or hate him, you have to admire Elon Musk’s chutzpah. Musk, one of the richest men in the world, recently disclosed a 9.2% investment in Twitter making him the largest shareholder, and a seat on the Board of Directors.

While the social media site is smaller compared to Meta, Instagram and other massive platforms, it serves as the public town square. Much of the public discourse takes place on the site.

Journalists, politicians, financial professionals and people from across all social and economic stratas weigh in with their thoughts and opinions.

It seems that everything becomes political, and people divide themselves into warring, squabbling factions. Concerns were raised by both internal workers and users over what will happen now that Musk is acting like he’s taking over. Some Twitter employees and users of the site openly complained and some said they’d leave the platform. Libertarians and conservatives were elated as they claimed they were ostracized and censored on the site.

One group who is very happy are the shareholders. Upon Musk’s announcement the share price of Twitter skyrocketed nearly 20% higher.

He hasn’t wasted any time taking charge. On Twitter, Musk has been tweeting his thoughts about new changes that should be made. He won’t be a typical investor and board member. The intrepid entrepreneur has a huge Twitter following, gets the zeitgeist of the platform and is an avid tweeter who mixes smart takes along with a sense of humor. This includes his creating a poll to determine if Twitter should “Delete the w in twitter?”

Musk proposed a subscription type of model, called Twitter Blue premium. It would charge around $3.00 per month to get a verified blue check–one that is different from “official account” and “paid 12 months up front & account doesn't get checkmark for 60 days (watch for credit card chargebacks) & suspended with no refund if used for scam/spam." The company currently has a feature for members sto tip creators with bitcoin.

There may be an option to pay the fee with dogecoin cryptocurrency, which is associated with Musk as he has referenced the token on numerous occasions. This new offering would provide for a steady stream of revenue and uncouple the social media site’s dependent upon corporate advertisers. The multi-billionaire also added that if the paid subscription expires, the check mark should also go away. This, he says, will mute the bots and scammers who try to game the system by signing up for only a couple of months.

Twitter Blue was previously launched in June 2021, as the first subscription service which offered "exclusive access to premium features" on a monthly subscription basis.