Akon, a Senegalese-American artist, has denied criticising Elon Musk for raising the price of the microblogging site’s blue verification badges.
In a now-deleted tweet, the ‘Oh Africa’ singer accused Elon Musk of “forcing” people to pay for verification, which was established to protect accounts from fake ones, and stated that he will not pay for the new Twitter blue subscription.
“Back in the day, Twitter was begging musicians to stay on cause they don’t have traffic. They came up with a verification process to protect accounts from take ones, now @elonmusk is taking that away and forcing us to pay- FYI, I’m ain’t paying shit for something we helped build,” a tweet from the singer’s verified account read on April 1, 2023.
However, in a new tweet posted on Tuesday [today], Akon denied making the remarks, claiming that his account was hacked.
He wrote, “My account was just hacked. This tweet didn’t come from me. Whoever hacked my account, please keep your personal opinions away from my profile respectfully.”
Recall that in November, 2022, Twitter announced plans to charge $19.99 for the new Blue subscription.
The blue subscription is one the company’s most controversial projects since Musk’s $44 billion takeover of Twitter on April 14, 2022.
