So this came up yesterday....Elon Musk now says that some (avoids saying the number of people involved).....Twitter employees were selling the verification badges 'under the table'.
Amount? Well.....some say $15,000 was at the peak....I'm guessing that most were paying just in the couple thousand range.
Normal cost of the blue verification badge? It was designed to not be that costly in the first place....but then regulations came along. Things got 'sneaky'.
Why this sneaky method? Well....Twitter, when it started the blue badge business....said you had to have 10,000 followers. If you didn't have 10,000 followers....you didn't deserve a badge.
I should add....you had to fall into one of a couple of categories: gov't official, news journalist, sports figure, Hollywood star, company boss, activist, You can imagine some marginal activist standing there and wanting public viewing.....going to his or her foundation....convincing them to cover the blue mark status, and giving him $10,000 to $15,000 to get the status 'mark'.
A regular guy getting a blue badge with just 500 followers? No.
I sat viewing this....wondering out of members....how many had blue verification marks? Well....423,000.
Some went the legit way....some went to illegit way.
I might go and assume that at least 100,000 are probably illegit. If you do the math and figure $8,000 as a minimum.....then 800-million dollars (minimum) was dispersed in some fraudulent way to Twitter employees and probably was NOT reported for taxation purposes.
These Twitter people? I'm guessing here.....but it's probably a crew of forty-odd people, and each one probably took in at least $100,000 in extra income a year.
All of this leading to more Bots being created....to help the poor fool reach 10,000 followers? Yeah, that was probably another part of the scheme by the insiders to Twitter.
If I used the $15,000 number? Well....it's up around 1.5-billion dollars that came in.....which was probably cash, and never reported to IRS or California tax folks.
Now....if I were one of these people.....with $5-million made in this gimmick? Well....at this point, with Elon talking about it.....IRS and the California tax office might be interested. I think I'd be reviewing my location status and finding a new home in Costa Rica or the Philippines.
But this brings me to the value of the blue verification mark. Out of 423,000 mark-people.....how are we supposed to value the blue mark at this point? If you ask me....it's crapped-out and of zero value.
The key group I'd look at? Activists and politicians.
