Twitter Verification Badge: Akon Reacts Over Alleged Calling Out Musk

Popular singer, Aliaune Damala Bouga, better known as Akon, has denied calling out Twitter Chief Executive Officer, Elon Musk, over the blue tick subscription fees.

The Senegalese-American had tweeted that Musk was “forcing” people to pay the Twitter verification fee that was created to protect accounts from fake ones, insisting that he won’t pay for the new Twitter blue subscription.

Musk had disclosed that from April 1, legacy verified users would have their blue ticks removed from the service unless they paid the $ 8-a-month subscription fee for Twitter Blue while organizations pay $1,000 a month.

Musk had removed the verification badge of the international media outlet, the New York Times, over failure to pay the subscription fee.

Akon’s deleted tweet read, “Back in the day, Twitter was begging musicians to stay on cause they don’t have traffic. They came up with a verification process to protect accounts from take ones, now @elonmusk is taking that away and forcing us to pay- FYI, I’m ain’t paying shit for something we helped build.”

However, a check by our correspondent on the singer’s account on Tuesday shows that the tweet has been deleted.

Quoting a screenshot of the deleted tweet on Tuesday, the “Lonely” crooner disclosed he was not behind the tweet, noting that his account was hacked.

He tweeted, “My account was just hacked. This tweet didn’t come from me. Whoever hacked my account, please keep your personal opinions away from my profile respectfully.”