By Alex Veiga, AP Business Writer
As Twitter's newest board member and largest shareholder, Elon Musk is already floating suggestions for changes he'd like to see on the social media platform.
In a series of tweets late Saturday, the Tesla and SpaceX CEO said that the company should include an "authentication checkmark" as a feature of its Twitter Blue premium subscription service, which costs $2.99 a month.
Twitter adds a checkmark logo next to a user name when the account has been verified "authentic, notable and active."
Musk also suggested Twitter make the authentication checkmarks of premium subscriber accounts different than those granted to official accounts belonging to public figures, for example.
Such a move, Musk said, would "massively expand" the pool of verified user accounts and discourage the proliferation of spam "bot" accounts, making them too expensive to maintain.
Musk also shared ideas for how Twitter should charge for its subscription membership, saying the fee "should be proportionate to affordability and in local currency," and adding: "Maybe even an option to pay in Doge?" referring to the Dogecoin cryptocurrency.
"And no ads," Musk tweeted. "The power of corporations to dictate policy is greatly enhanced if Twitter depends on advertising money to survive."
Nearly 90% of Twitter's revenue in 2021 came from advertising.
Musk's latest tweets about Twitter, including posting polls asking his 81 million followers whether Twitter is "dying" and whether the company's San Francisco headquarters should be converted into a homeless shelter "since no one shows up anyway," followed a tweet earlier in the week asking if he should add an edit button on the platform.
Last week, Twitter disclosed in a regulatory filing that it entered into an agreement with Musk giving the billionaire a seat on the company's board, with the term expiring at its 2024 annual shareholders meeting. The move came a day after it was disclosed that Musk took a 9% stake in the company.
Twitter declined to comment Sunday.
ABC will air 6 additional “Monday Night Football” games starting this week with Bills-Jets
ABC will simulcast six more ESPN "Monday Night Football" games, including Monday's AFC East matchup between the Buffalo Bills and the New York Jets.
The addition of the six games means ABC will air 17 this season — 14 simulcasts with ESPN (including two playoff games) and three games exclusively on ABC.
The decision to simulcast more games was a joint decision between the NFL and Walt Disney Company, which owns ABC and ESPN.
The other added games are Baltimore at Tampa Bay (Oct. 21), Tampa Bay at Kansas City (Nov. 4), Houston at Dallas (Nov. 18), Baltimore at Los Angeles Chargers (Nov. 25) and New Orleans at Green Bay (Dec. 23).
The only two Mondays the rest of the regular season where ABC will not have a game are Nov. 11 and Dec. 2.
ABC had games all 18 weeks last season due to an agreement with the NFL since there was no new original fall programming due to the Hollywood writers and actors strikes. With more games on network television, "Monday Night Football" averaged 17.36 million viewers across ESPN, ESPN2 and ABC, a 29% increase over 2022.
It was the best audience numbers for the league's seminal prime-time package since 2000. The Super Bowl 57 rematch between Philadelphia and Kansas City averaged 29.03 million.
Coming into the season, ABC had eight scheduled simulcasts, including two Saturday Week 18 games and two playoff games, and three exclusive MNF games when there were doubleheaders.
It also continues Disney's move toward putting more sports programming back on ABC. Super Bowl 61 from Los Angeles in 2027 will be on the network and the College Football Playoff championship game will also move to ABC the same year.
More games on ABC will also boost the ratings. Kansas City's 26-13 victory... Read More