Thursday 10 November 2022 10:35 PM Stephen King takes another stab at Elon Musk, says Twitter was 'more fun' ... trends now
New Twitter CEO Elon Musk was criticized yet again by legendary horror author Stephen King, who said Thursday that he thinks Twitter was 'better' and 'more fun' before Musk took over.
King has been openly disdainful of the changes ushered in by Musk, including charging users for a verification checkmark in order to make the company more profitable.
'I think I liked Twitter better in the pre-Musk days. Less controversy, more fun,' tweeted King.
Musk responded with a ghost emoji before admitting to The Shining author 'I’m still a fan of you tbh.'
The six-month acquisition of Twitter under Musk started in April and ended in late October when he purchased the company for $44 billion.
King and Musk have traded barbs ever since Musk purchased Twitter, beginning with Musk's proposal to charge $20 a month for Twitter Blue users.
Stephen King sent another barb to Elon Musk when he claimed he liked Twitter 'better' before Musk's $44 billion acquisition of the company, adding 'less controversy, more fun'
Musk responded to King and said 'I still like you,' but has previously quarreled with the writer on Twitter about features he planned to implement (Picture: Musk attends Heidi Klum's 21st annual Halloween party at Sake No Hana at Moxy Lower East Side on Halloween 2022)
'$20 a month to keep my blue check? F*** that, they should pay me,' wrote King in early November, who has 6.9 million followers. 'If that gets instituted, I’m gone like Enron.'
But Musk, noticing the author's complaints, seemed to be in the mood to haggle.
'We need to pay the bills somehow! Twitter cannot rely entirely on advertisers. How about $8?' he replied.
More recently, Musk gutted the company's workforce and fired approximately half of all employees, and has now ended the remote work policy in a stark email on Wednesday.
Twitter's most senior cybersecurity staffer, Lea Kissner, also resigned on Wednesday along with the chief privacy officer and chief compliance officer.
Musk said: 'The road ahead is arduous and will require intense work to succeed.'
Musk added that he expects workers to work at least 40 hours a week, and hours will be subject to approval from him.
He has also taken away 'days of rest' from Twitter staff calendars, a monthly, and a company-wide day off that was introduced during the pandemic period.
'If you can physically make it to an office and you don’t show up, resignation accepted,' Musk reportedly told Twitter staff.
He continues to push for users to pay $8 a month for 'blue tick' verification on Twitter and said in the email to staff last night that he wants the social media site to make half of its revenue from subscriptions.
He added on Thursday that 'bankruptcy isn't out of the question.'
Musk is also working on finding and suspending any verified bots, trolls, and spam over the next few days, according to a separate email.
His announcement ending remote working for Twitter staff came hours after he pulled the plug on the new gray 'Official' label because he believes it was 'another way of creating a two-class system.'
The badge was reserved for high-profile accounts, such as media outlets and celebrities, but Musk 'killed it' within hours of its rollout Wednesday morning.
Along with being 'an aesthetic nightmare,' the light-colored gray emblem wasn't addressing the fact that 'there are too many entities that would be considered official or have sort of legacy blue check marks', Musk said during a live Town Hall meeting.
'But I go back to what I said earlier, which is that we're going to be extremely vigorous about eliminating deception,' he said.
'So if someone tries to impersonate a brand, that account will be suspended, and we will keep their eight dollars.'
