Elon Musk talks about "treating everyone equally" on Twitter, but a new report reveals that he has a list of "about 35 VIP users" who are supported on the platform.
Documents obtained by Platformer allege that people from the worlds of politics, sports, Hollywood and many journalists are receiving increased visibility.
The report states that when tweets from VIPs are dropped, the social networking platform's engineers modify the code so that it is "always visible". Among the elite are Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Daily Wire founder Ben Shapiro, President Joe Biden, Los Angeles Laker LeBron James, and Bloomberg columnist Matt Iglesias, among many others.
The move to tweak the algorithm to boost tweets echoes Musk's demands of Twitter engineers in February to push his tweets after they were overshadowed by President Joe Biden's Super Bowl post.
Musk is set to give only Twitter Blue subscribers access to the verification mark, which he likened to "a system of lords and peasants," in November 2022.
Looking at the names of the so-called VIPs, it appears that they gained status due to how much users interacted with them - whether they loved them or hated them.
Some speculate that the listing is Musk's plan to increase revenue, with many - including himself - saying the CEO overpaid for the platform, which was struggling to generate revenue.
Musk also revealed this week that starting April 15, users who don't pay for Twitter Blue — which costs $8 per month — will no longer be able to vote in polls.
He said the changes would prevent "hordes of AI bots from taking over" the site, though he didn't explain exactly how.
The CEO - who bought the social network in October - said paid social media would be "the only social media that matters".
It was also revealed that Twitter is now worth just $20 billion — $24 billion less than it was when Musk paid for it six months ago, the world's richest man told his staff.
The news was shared in an internal email by Musk, but this isn't the first time the 51-year-old CEO has complained about the platform's value.
He famously tried to stop his $44 billion takeover of the company, claiming in court that internal documents proved the social network was not worth that much.
Source: Daily Mail
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