'Didn’t ask for blue tick, take it away': Martina Navratilova slams Elon Musk

Martina Navratilova slammed Elon Musk for his decision to charge Twitter users for a blue tick.

Tennis legend Martina Navratilova said she did not ask for the blue tick of verification on Twitter soon after the social media giant’s new CEO, Elon Musk, declared an $8 per month fee to verify users' accounts.

“I didn’t ask for the blue check mark- it just showed up one day, so feel free to take it away. My peeps know it’s me,” Martina Navratilova told Musk on Twitter, replying to his tweet announcing the fee.

Asked by a Twitter user if losing the blue tick would bother her, Navratilova, who has over 4.19 lakh followers, said, “Paying for the blue tick is what would bother me- hence I don’t need one.”

I didn’t ask for the blue check mark- it just showed up one day, so feel free to take it away. My peeps know it’s me.

— Martina Navratilova (@Martina) November 1, 2022

The Tesla and SpaceX chief argued the plan to charge users for the blue tick would solve the platform's issues with bots and trolls while creating a new revenue stream for the company.

“Twitter’s current lords and peasants system for who has or doesn’t have a blue checkmark is b*****it. Power to the people! Blue for $8/month,” Musk, 51, tweeted, adding that the price is adjusted by country proportionate to purchasing power parity.

Elon Musk, the world's richest man, took sole control of the social media giant in a contentious $44 billion deal. He also fired the company’s four top executives, including Indian-origin CEO Parag Agrawal and legal executive Vijaya Gadde.

Musk has received mixed reactions for his move to charge users for a blue tick. Author Stephen King, who has nearly seven million followers on the platform, was among those who slammed the billionaire entrepreneur.

“$20 a month to keep my blue check? F**k that, they should pay me,” he tweeted Monday, adding that he would quit the platform if Musk goes ahead with the verification fee. “If that gets instituted, I’m gone like Enron,” King tweeted.

Musk replied to King justifying his move to charge users for the blue tick. “We need to pay the bills somehow! Twitter cannot rely entirely on advertisers. How about $8?”