Elon Musk's X has stirred confusion as some users woke up to free blue ticks on Thursday (Apr 4) morning. For those living under a rock, X, formerly Twitter, for years, used to offer blue tick verification badges to prominent accounts, including those of celebrities, politicians, journalists, and other influential people.

Back from the dead: Elon Musk's X sparks confusion with surprise return of free blue ticks

Elon Musk’s Twitter finally did what it had decided to do over two weeks ago; remove its blue checks from verified accounts. This has left many confused over which accounts of celebrities, lawmakers, and so on, are real and which are not.

Explained | Twitter yanks blue ticks but there's still a way to see if an account is real

The New York Times will not pay a monthly fee to get verified check mark status on Twitter, a spokesperson for the newspaper said. Organizations will have to shell out $1,000 a month to obtain gold check marks while individuals can get blue checks for a starting price of $7 in the United States.

The New York Times says it won't pay for Twitter verified account badge