Manchester City duo Riyad Mahrez and Aymeric Laporte hit out at “crazy dude” Elon Musk and his “weird ideas” after seeing their blue ticks on Twitter disappear.
The American social media platform made the announcement a few months ago that ‘legacy’ verification ticks would be disappearing, pushing users to Musk’s controversial Twitter Blue subscription. Those ticks started being stripped from a variety of accounts on Thursday.
Amongst those hit were a vast array of prominent Premier League stars including reigning champions Mahrez and Laporte. The Algerian winger hit out at Musk for his decision to charge users for verification going forwards.
Taking to Twitter, the former Leicester star wrote: “Already lost it [verification] once, not scared of not having it anymore. I'm not paying for this weird ideas lol.”
One fan replied to Mahrez’s tweet by saying: “3M [followers] and no certification, it's still weird, sah,” to which he replied “I don’t give a damn personally”. Mahrez was not the only one of Pep Guardiola’s squad to have expressed his thoughts on the change.
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Spanish centre-back Laporte also questioned the decision after seeing his own blue tick disappear. Taking to the platform initially, he wrote: “Damn Elon what did u do lol”
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One supporter then came up with a dastardly plan to potentially earn the defender his verification mark back instead of paying the subscription fee. They wrote: “Apparently if you change your @ to “I’mEricLaporte” he will give you the tick back” - an idea that Laporte said was “tempting”.
The conversation went on throughout the evening with another supporter telling the Spaniard that “ur one of us now”, to which he responded “I’ve always been”. It wasn’t all so jovial for Laporte though as he was questioned over not paying the subscription fee.
One disgruntled fan said: “You're rich. Pay the $8.” He had a forthright response to that claim, having once again taken aim at Musk and his ideas since purchasing the platform in October last year.
Laporte said: “That's not the point tho I'm not paying for something that was perfectly fine before some crazy dude decided to change everything lol.”
Whilst a vast array of Premier League stars have seen their verification ticks disappear, the same can’t quite be said of a few athletes. Despite having previously hit out at the idea, NBA star Lebron James still has a tick clearly on display on his account.
However, reports have suggested that the American is among a clutch of prominent users that are having their verification paid for personally by Musk. He confirmed that fact in a tweet on Thursday evening, albeit stopping short of confirming which accounts he has funded.
