Stephen King Says Twitter Gave Him a Fake Paid Subscription Badge

Now that’s just petty, Elon.

While far from the first time that Elon Musk has resorted to behavior only a Karen could endorse, this is a new low. After coming out with a disastrous subscription based blue check service, Lonny Boy has tried repeatedly to get Twitter’s more high-profile users on board. Horror author Stephen King was one of the first people to publicly denounce Musk’s new policy, saying that he was not going to shell out $20 a month for a blue check. Musk was quick to start haggling with King, erroneously thinking that the multi-million dollar author just couldn’t afford forking over an Andrew Jackson every 30 days. It was the principle of the thing that King was offended by. For a man like Musk, who lacks any sort of principles whatsoever, this was difficult to understand.

Musk ended up taking a massive L in front of the entire Twitterverse, and limped back to one of his McMansions to lick his wounds. Unable to handle the slight, he has now decided to give Stephen King a blue check free of charge—without telling anyone about the sudden and “generous” decision. Users quickly noticed that clicking the blue check on King’s Twitter profile now displayed text claiming that the author is subscribed to Twitter Blue and has “verified” his phone number:

Musk would rather have it appear that King caved and decided to spend his money on a Twitter Blue subscription, as if the horror author had finally seen the light.

Stephen King was not impressed.

The author quickly took to Twitter to clarify that he had not subscribed to Twitter Blue or given the website his phone number. Another user called out the fact that a blue check had mysteriously appeared on LeBron James’ Twitter account as well, which was likely not paid for, either. Users immediately began lampooning Musk in the comments, pointing out the irony in Musk PAYING for Stephen King’s check mark in order to embarrass him. It didn’t work. A few of Musk’s blue check buying cronies attempted to drag King in the comments section, but were immediately dunked on by other users making fun of their decision to purchase the worthless blue checks themselves. Halle Berry was quick to tell her followers that she would be joining the unverified masses after the Twitter Blue decision to remove “legacy check marks” from well-known accounts.

So yes, Elon Musk paid $4.4 billion just to have celebrities from around the globe tell him to fuck off. The irony is sweet.

(featured image: Leigh Vogel, WireImage / Getty Images)