Companies say Elon Musk's plan to charge $1,000 for month for Twitter checkmarks is 'outlandish' and makes them 'meaningless'

• Companies have hit out at Elon Musk for charging them $1,000 a month to stay verified on Twitter.
• Twitter plans to make users and organizations on Twitter pay to keep their blue checkmark.
• One company cofounder called the move "outlandish" and makes the checkmark "meaningless."

Elon Musk is making organizations pay $1,000 a month to have a verified blue checkmark on their Twitter accounts, and some companies are vexed.

Twitter said it's planning to remove legacy verified blue ticks from users' accounts starting on April 1 — that's April Fools' day. The only way users can keep their checkmarks is by signing up to its paid Twitter Blue subscription that costs $8 a month.

But for accounts signed up to Twitter Verified Organizations, the cost is much steeper. For $1,000 a month, businesses, non-profits, and government institutions will receive either a blue, gold, or grey checkmark. It'll cost them an extra $50 a month, plus any applicable tax, for additional affiliated business accounts in the US, Twitter says.

William LeGate, cofounder of Pillow-Fight, told Insider the $1,000-a-month charge was "outlandish" and "meaningless." He said the bedding firm wouldn't miss being verified because the blue checkmark didn't offer a noticeable boost in engagement.

"Blue checks will be overtaken by trolls & imposters starting April 1st. People will begin associating blue checkmarks with scammers, vile trolls, and Musk sycophants," he said.

BitMEX, a cryptocurrency platform, tweeted at Musk and said "verification is your cost to bear, NOT your users." BitMEX added that paying for verification for all of its users was expensive, but the firm was "cool" with it. The platform didn't reply to Insider's request for comment.

In a newsletter, Music Business Worldwide said it had "begrudgingly" signed up to Twitter's monthly verified subscription. It wasn't clear what subscription the site was paying for. MBW didn't immediately respond to Insider's request for comment.

G Fuel, an energy drink company which is verified on the platform, tweeted: "We had a good run lol."

Insider contacted Twitter for comment. The company responded with an automated message that didn't address the inquiry.

Among the Twitter users that criticized the change was Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. She tweeted: "Last time they tried this someone pretended to be Eli Lilly and tanked their stock price by pretending insulin was free."