Elon Musk

New Twitter boss launches the Blue verification service, but some users already seem to be misusing it. One of those reported to be affected is LeBron James, the celebrated basketball player.

Elon Musk, the new boss of Twitter, appears to be creating a flutter in whatever he does. On Thursday he officially launched Twitter’s Blue verification service for $8 on iOS in some countries.

But already some users are misusing it. Fake news spreaders are impersonating others for $8 a month. American professional basketball player LeBron James is one of those affected, according to a report in a section of the Indian media.

"Please note that Twitter will do lots of dumb things in coming months. We will keep what works & change what doesn't," Musk posted.

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Elon Musk may be the world’s richest man, but he could also be the planet’s most whimsical man. His idiosyncracies seem to dictate what he does with his money (read: acquisitions).

For weeks, he hemmed and hawed over his purchase of the social media giant Twitter before zeroing in on the acquisition last month.

He has a penchant for the dramatic. On Wednesday, he killed the grey ‘official’ verification badge for some select handles and extremely special users, including India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi, hours after rolling it out.

He averred that the Blue check would be the great leveller on the platform.

Twitter earlier started giving grey badges to government officials and public figures globally, including in India, but later reversed the change. "I just killed it," Musk tweeted to a user.

A user who got the 'Official' badge posted: "Update: It's now gone", according to the Indo-Asian News Service.

But Musk has done something more alarming: he sold $3.95 billion worth of shares in the electric-vehicle maker Tesla.

This created anxiety about the fallout of his Twitter buy on the world's most valuable automaker, analysts said.

They are not sure whether he would be distracted from selling Tesla or divert cash to the social media company.