Musk's embarrassing gift

Hey y’all. Elon Musk is giving away once-desired verification badges to popular X users, and some recipients are flipping out. But first...T [View in browser]( [Bloomberg]( [by Austin Carr]( Hey y’all. Elon Musk is giving away once-desired verification badges to popular X users, and some recipients are flipping out. But first... Three things you need to know today: • Canada’s launching a [$1.8 billion AI fund]( • E-bike operator Lime is [returning to Greece and Mexico]( • Instagram brought in almost a third of [Meta revenue in 2022]( The benevolence of Musk In recent days, influential users on X, the social network formerly known as Twitter, began noticing a blue checkmark mysteriously appearing in their profiles. The label denotes a “verified” account and has been reserved to paid subscribers since Musk overhauled the system a few months into owning the service co-founded by Jack Dorsey. Now [Musk has decided to grant the status marker for free]( to those with enough followers. Which is roughly what it was like previously, when the company would confirm the identity of political, celebrity, sports or otherwise notable figures. There’s just one hiccup: Some qualifying users sound [downright embarrassed]( to have a blue checkmark now and want their followers to know they’re [definitely not]( forking out [money for it](. This latest X rule represents yet another confusing change for the blue check, a symbol that once conveyed a measure of authenticity and clout that’s since become almost devoid of any coherent meaning or value. If anything, it’s come to symbolize allegiance to Musk and his worldviews, as the initial cohort of paying subscribers were largely only paying for the mark to support his venture to remake the service. The current policy shift is also a stark about-face for the billionaire, who previously vowed to stop distributing complimentary badges to apparently undeserving elites and start charging for the privilege. Under the old Twitter regime, the badge was intended to validate a high-profile user’s identity and mitigate the risks posed by knockoff and spam accounts. If @LeBronJames tweeted he was switching teams and @KingJames denied the trade rumor, you’d know to trust the real latter account for the basketball star because it displayed a blue check alongside his handle. But the process for getting verified was opaque and arbitrary, and eventually became a source of controversy among those who saw deeper, arguably conspiratorial implications for badge haves and have-nots. “The legacy blue checkmark system was corrupt to the core and I despise those who want it back,” Musk [said]( in August. After taking over Twitter a year and a half ago, he [promised]( to get rid of the “lords & peasants system,” replacing it with an approval process anyone could undergo—so long as they purchased a premium X subscription, which now ranges from $8 to $16 a month. The system was a mess at first. It was [easy to get imposter accounts verified]( and [bad actors took advantage of their paid-for prestige]( to amplify questionable content. Meanwhile, users whose legacy status was revoked sometimes refused to pay for the new verification program in protest of the direction Musk was taking Twitter. All this muddied the significance of being verified. Musk also broke his own rule and simply gifted blue checkmarks to certain celebrities who didn’t end up subscribing, including LeBron James, who said he had [no interest in paying to be verified](. Of course, a big problem with removing badges for big-name users en masse was that the most engaging accounts of the old Twitter were suddenly everyday advertisements for not upgrading to an X subscription. This was evident over the past week as users found badges resurfacing in their profiles and expressed frustration. Some even resorted to hiding the badge through an option X offers in its settings menu. My guess is this agita will be short-lived. A more interesting test will be if they do or don’t embrace X’s additional premium features, such as the ability to write 25,000-character posts or interact with Grok, [Musk’s answer to ChatGPT](. In that sense, it’s a pretty clever and sneaky promotion by Musk, whose justification for reversing course and verifying popular, non-paying users is that it’s merely a reward for delivering good content for those who do subscribe. In order to receive a free badge and X subscription, you’ll need to be followed by at least 2,500 verified users. In other words, it’s no longer enough to be popular in general; you have to be popular with the existing blue-badge crowd, who are more likely to be pro-Musk. Which, in a way, marks a return to the old division of lords and peasants. The only difference is that in this new feudal system, Musk is king.—[Austin Carr](mailto:acarr54@bloomberg.net) The big story The US plans to award TSMC $6.6 billion in grants and as much as $5 billion in loans to help the world’s top chipmaker build factories in Arizona, expanding President Joe Biden’s effort to [boost domestic production of critical technology](. One to watch Levi's President and CEO Michelle Gass joins Caroline Hyde and Ed Ludlow days after the company reported earnings. She discusses the impact from Beyoncé naming a song after Levi's, and how the company is not planning on leaving San Francisco anytime soon. Get fully charged Alibaba’s slashing cloud prices internationally, mirroring [deep discounts at home in China](. Japan’s Towa has nearly quintupled its share price off the back of selling [compression molding machines to AI memory makers](. MicroStrategy’s maximalist Bitcoin bet is paying off and there’s [room to go higher](. Meta’s embracing more AI-generated content, [even if misleading](. Apple accepted EU demands to lower restrictions imposed on [alternative music-streaming apps.]( More from Bloomberg Get Bloomberg Tech weeklies in your inbox: - [Cyber Bulletin]( for coverage of the shadow world of hackers and cyber-espionage - [Game On]( for reporting on the video game business - [Power On]( for Apple scoops, consumer tech news and more - [Screentime]( for a front-row seat to the collision of Hollywood and Silicon Valley - [Soundbite]( for reporting on podcasting, the music industry and audio trends - [Q&AI]( for answers to all your questions about AI Follow Us Like getting this newsletter? [Subscribe to Bloomberg.com]( for unlimited access to trusted, data-driven journalism and subscriber-only insights. Want to sponsor this newsletter? [Get in touch here](. You received this message because you are subscribed to Bloomberg's Tech Daily newsletter. 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