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Ariana Baio
Nov 11, 2022
Controversial Twitter takeover: Musk announces $8 monthly charge for blue check mark
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Pharmaceutical company Eli Lilly saw a sudden drop in its stock thanks to an impersonator using Twitter Blue.
When Elon Musk introduced Twitter Blue it was to allow anyone to obtain a verified check mark so long as they paid the $8.99 subscription fee.
Quickly, Musk ran into impersonation problems and decided to add a feature that would tell Twitter users which accounts were verified for notability versus subscription.
By clicking on the blue checkmark on a verified Twitter user's profile, people can tell why their account received verification.
But that didn't solve the problem.
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On Thursday, Eli Lilly's stock closed around $368 USD. Later that night a Twitter Blue subscriber created a fake Eli Lilly account and began tweeting as though they were the company.
"We are excited to announce insulin is free now," Twitter account @EliLillyandCo wrote.
Because the account seemed legitimate and it wasn't clearly marked as Twitter Blue verified, people assumed it was real.
By Friday morning, Eli Lilly's stock fell to $346.
\u201cDid Twitter Blue tweet just cost Eli Lilly $LLY billions? \n\nYes.\u201d— Rafael Shimunov is on Mastodon (@Rafael Shimunov is on Mastodon) 1668190839
The company tweeted on Friday, "We apologize to those who have been served a misleading message from a fake Lilly account. Our official Twitter account is @LillyPad."
Musk also paused Twitter Blue verification rollout on Friday as other companies faced similar issues.
While Eli Lilly's stock was negatively impacted, the parody account's tweet did bring attention to a major issue in the US- the price of insulin.
\u201cLet's be clear. Eli Lilly should apologize for increasing the price of insulin by over 1,200% since 1996 to $275 while it costs less than $10 to manufacture. The inventors of insulin sold their patents in 1923 for $1 to save lives, not to make Eli Lilly's CEO obscenely rich.\u201d— Bernie Sanders (@Bernie Sanders) 1668198763
\u201cEli Lilly stock isn't just tanking because of a satirical Tweet on Musk's hellscape, it's tanking because millions of people are asking why we have to pay for insulin, when it was made to be free.\n\nThat's why other insulin stocks are falling too.\n\nHappy Disability Awareness Month\u201d— Rafael Shimunov is on Mastodon (@Rafael Shimunov is on Mastodon) 1668190839
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