Daily Wire podcaster Michael Knowles declared on Friday that he would soon start paying for his blue checkmark on Twitter in order to “show my support” for “Chief Twit” Elon Musk—and also to stick it to the libs.
On Thursday, Musk finally followed through on his long-promised threat to remove verification badges from all “legacy” accounts that did not pay $8 for the platform’s Twitter Blue feature. Outside of some affiliates of government and media organizations, and a “few” celebrities that Musk said he was “personally” paying for to be verified, the only accounts featuring the once-vaunted blue checkmark are now paying for that privilege.
Knowles, a far-right provocateur who recently made headlines after calling for transgenderism to be “eradicated,” currently boasts nearly a million followers on Twitter. However, like most other previously verified accounts, he lost his checkmark on Thursday because he wasn’t paying for Twitter Blue. But he said he would rectify that situation in short order on Friday.
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“I wasn’t planning on paying the $8 for it because I thought, well, I got my blue check a while ago. I was cool. Now I lost my blue check, it’s fine,” he said on his eponymous podcast, adding that Twitter Blue is “probably worth” the cost upon further research.
“But now I’ve decided that I probably am going to pay my $8,” Knowles continued. “And I’m going to pay the $8 for two reasons. One, because the libs have turned the blue check now into a referendum on whether or not you support what Elon Musk is doing at Twitter. And I do support what he’s doing at Twitter—I think it’s really important and noble for him to do. So I think that’s worth $8.”
From there, the Daily Wire host referenced the financial peril facing Twitter, which has seemingly grown worse since Musk purchased the company last fall. The meme-addicted billionaire—who has fired two-thirds of Twitter’s staff, relentlessly pushed through contradictory policy changes, and used the platform to engage in culture-war-fueled feuds—acknowledged recently that the social media site has lost over $20 billion of value since he took over.
“Elon Musk doesn’t need my $8, but Twitter probably does because it’s very hard for Twitter to be profitable,” Knowles proclaimed. “So if I can show my support of him standing up for traditional standards of speech in America, I’m more than happy to do it.”
Moments later, after quipping that another reason he’ll subscribe to Twitter Blue is because of Musk’s stance on alien lifeforms, Knowles said, “I will get my blue checkmark back,” and he’d try to take care of it on Friday.
Notably, many of Knowles’ Daily Wire cohorts retained their blue checks after Thursday’s purge, including the company’s founder Ben Shapiro and transphobic activist Matt Walsh, revealing that they had jumped aboard the Twitter Blue bandwagon a while ago.
Of course, considering Musk’s propensity to pander to right-wing trolls who clamor for his attention, and conservatives’ willingness to shamelessly bow down and literally “thank God” for his Twitter ownership, it’s hardly a surprise that the Daily Wire crew is falling over themselves to kiss the ring.
Meanwhile, Musk’s attempt to force legacy verified accounts to pay for checkmarks doesn’t appear to be meeting with much success early on.
