The Clap
The introduction of a new paid verification feature allowed users to impersonate some multinational companies, costing them billions of dollars.
The Deets
The aim of the new feature is to limit the amount of spam and bot users, as the subscription gives the user a verified checkmark for an $8 monthly subscription.
However, the feature was used by users to impersonate big multinational corporations, sending out tweets that significantly impacted their stock prices.
While the new paid verification feature was an attempt from Musk to minimize the number of bot and spam accounts, the feature resulted in a flurry of fake accounts.
Why don’t advertisers trust Elon Musk? pic.twitter.com/HhRvwH92d8
— Mark Jacob (@MarkJacob16) November 11, 2022
Twitter Blue erased a few billion in market cap for Lockheed Martin pic.twitter.com/RsMBfRyhO1
— litquidity (@litcapital) November 11, 2022
UPDATE—Just learned that Eli Lilly executives are raging and furious at losing $20 billion in market cap from this stunt with @TwitterBlue. It’s too bad they don’t see their own damn insulin price gouging as the actual problem. Karma @LillyPad, karma. pic.twitter.com/AzXRpMH8mi
— Eric Feigl-Ding (@DrEricDing) November 11, 2022
So What
Eli Lilly (NYSE: LLY), Lockheed Martin (NYSE: LMT), Pepsi (NASDAQ: PEP), and many more were impacted following fake tweets.
Now What
Following the series of fake tweets, Twitter was forced to suspend the new paid verification feature until further notice.
