Elon Musk Forces Dead Celebrities to Become "Paying" Twitter Blue Subscribers

This is getting ridiculous.

Beyond the Grave

After yoinking legacy verification blue checkmarks from Twitter accounts last week, CEO Elon Musk is now adding Twitter Blue checkmarks to the accounts of celebrities without their consent — including some who passed away years ago.

The fiasco began when Musk promised to purge the legacy ticks on April 20, an attempt to get formerly verified users to pony up $8 a month for a Blue subscription instead (which doesn't actually verify a user's identity).

But after finally removing the legacy checks, Blue checkmarks have started returning to various prominent accounts, including dead celebrities such as "Black Panther" star Chadwick Boseman and NBA legend Kobe Bryant.

"This account is verified because they are subscribed to Twitter Blue and verified their phone number," reads a note on the be-checkmarked profiles.

In other words, Musk is effectively paying himself $8 a month on behalf of deceased individuals, a bizarre decision that highlights the sheer chaos that has engulfed Twitter's operations since Musk's takeover.

Bloody Check

Musk isn't disputing the situation, and celebrities aren't happy either, with one commentator quipping that the Twitter Blue checkmarks are now a "digital dunce cap."

"I’m paying for a few personally," Musk admitted after basketball star LeBron James and author Stephen King were revolted to find Twitter had cursed them with a blue checkmark against their will.

"My Twitter account says I’ve subscribed to Twitter Blue," King tweeted. "I haven't. My Twitter account says I’ve given a phone number. I haven't."

While the social media platform did visually remove the legacy checkmarks, which were handed out to verified users over the years, a brief look at the code revealed that the company simply hid them from public view and didn't actually remove them.

While the kerfuffle sounds pretty benign on the surface — who cares if a celebrity profile has a blue checkmark or not? — it now feels a lot like the social media company is using them to falsely claim celebrities, dead or alive, are endorsing Twitter Blue.

As Insider points out, that made-up endorsement could violate California's Civil Code 3344.1, which prohibits anybody from advertising a product using the likeness of a deceased personality.

It's a pitiful state of affairs. Twitter finds itself in a deep financial hole and its leader's desperation is really starting to show. Musk is hoping to begin closing the gap with a subscription that, given the sheer amount of backlash, isn't just a terrible value proposition — but an increasingly unpopular one as well.

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