Elon Musk’s $8-a-month blue tick sows chaos online as fake accounts disguising as big brands pop up

Elon Musk‘s $8-a-month blue check mark subscription service is causing even more chaos as some companies have reported seeing their share value drop, losing billions, following tweets sent out by fake Twitter accounts.

The social media platform paused its recently announced service on Friday as fake accounts mushroomed, and new owner Musk brought back the ‘official’ badge to some users.

Fake accounts purporting to be big brands have popped up with the blue check since the new roll-out, including Musk’s Tesla and SpaceX, as well as Roblox, Nestle, Lockheed Martin and Eli Lilly.

But the damage was already done for some as stock prices dropped on Friday.  

Eli Lilly fell 4.5 percent Friday after a user tweeted from a verified account that looked like an official Lilly profile:  ‘We are excited to announce insulin is now free.’

The company’s capitalization also decreased by more than $7 billion. Lilly posted an apology from its real account and executives later ordered a halt to all Twitter ad campaigns, the Washington Post reported. 

The same day, Lockheed Martin fell 5.5 percent on Friday after a verified account set up to look like the firm tweeted: ‘We will begin halting all weapons sales to Saudi Arabia, Israel and the United States until further investigation into their record of human rights abuses. #WeAreLM.’

Following the chaos on Friday, Musk tweeted on Sunday that Twitter will soon enable organizations to identify accounts associated with them.

‘Rolling out soon,’ Musk in a tweet on Sunday said. ‘Twitter will enable organizations to identify which other Twitter accounts are actually associated with them.’

The coveted blue check mark was previously reserved for verified accounts of politicians, famous personalities, journalists and other public figures. 

But a subscription option, open to anyone prepared to pay, was rolled out last week to help Twitter grow revenue as Musk fights to retain advertisers.

On Friday, Twitter suspended the ability to pay $8 a month for a blue check mark that denotes an official, verified account.

It came after the social media platform was flooded with impersonated accounts of notable people.

Musk had said the service ‘needs some tweaks, but overall proceeding well’.

And on Sunday, Musk in a tweet said that Twitter Blue will probably ‘come back end of next week’.

The verification system has been exploited by fake accounts impersonating a range of different brands and people since Musk took over. 

On Friday, Eli Lilly executives ordered a halt to all Twitter ad campaigns, the Washington Post reported. 

They also paused their Twitter publishing plan for all corporate accounts around the world.

‘For $8, they’re potentially losing out on millions of dollars in ad revenue,’ Amy O’Connor, a former senior communications official at Eli Lilly who now works at a trade association, told the Post. 

‘What’s the benefit to a company … of staying on Twitter? It’s not worth the risk when patient trust and health are on the line.’

Eli Lilly declined to reveal how much money it has spent on advertising with Twitter.

But it’s not the only billion-dollar company whose accounts have been copied.

An account claiming to be PepsiCo tweeted out: ‘Coke is better.’  

Nestle, which is Poland Springs parent company tweeted: ‘We steal your water and sell it back to you.’ 

Musk’s companies SpaceX and Tesla were not even safe from fake accounts.   

The SpaceX account tweeted: ‘It is with a heavy heart that we announce that we will be ceasing all missions. We plan to funnel $240 million in overstanding government subsidies to groups dedicated to sustainable agriculture and ending World Hunger.’

From a ‘verified’ Tesla Twitter account, someone tweeted: ‘honestly a 53% drop in stock price doesn’t [faze] us. If there’s anyone who knows about crashing it’s us.’

The Federal Trade Commission has warned that it’s following recent developments at Twitter ‘with concern’ and one of the company’s lawyers wrote on an internal messaging board that the social network could face billions in fines over violations of its consent decree with the US agency.

Despite the chaos, Musk wrote on Twitter that the number of active users on his platform were at an ‘all time high’. ‘Quite the day!’ he wrote, have said before: ‘Usage of Twitter continues to rise. One thing is for sure: it isn’t boring!’

In another Tweet, Musk had posted: ‘Please note that Twitter will do lots of dumb things in coming months. We will keep what works & change what doesn’t.’

The Tesla CEO has controversially said he wants the blue tick to be available to all paying customers. He said opening the verification process up to more people will help democratize Twitter and cut down on the spam and bot accounts on the site.

But critics have said this opens the door to confusion, impersonation and the further spread of misinformation.

Musk tweeted late on Thursday that all parody accounts must have ‘parody’ in their username as an attempt to crack down on the confusion.

Several top security and privacy experts at the company have also resigned amid the controversial changes.

Meanwhile, Twitter has cut half of its workforce and Musk raised the possibility of the social media platform going bankrupt.