Elon Musk reportedly wants you to buy your blue checkmark on Twitter

Everyone’s been girding their loins since Elon Musk assumed the mantle of “Chief Twit” (his designation, not ours), wondering what fresh hell he might enact on the already pretty toxic wasteland of Twitter. So far, ideas he’s proposed—in between promoting conspiracy theories—have included a “content moderation council,” polling whether he should bring back Vine, and making comedy legal (heavy sigh). But perhaps the most controversial proposal is a major change to the blue-check verification.

Musk ominously promised on Sunday that “The whole verification process is being revamped right now.” According to The Verge, this means combining verification with Twitter Blue, the site’s subscription service that unlocks extra features. The new CEO has reportedly handed down the directive to bump the current price ($4.99) up to $19.99 and has given employees a hard deadline of November 7 to have this feature up and running, or they’ll be fired. (No doubt morale is high over at Twitter HQ!) Oh, and anyone currently verified who doesn’t cough up the cash for a subscription will lose their blue check after a 90-day period once the plan takes effect.

Twitter’s current verification system requires users to apply for a check mark, after which the company will evaluate whether the user is “authentic, notable, and active.” It’s not necessarily a perfect system, but the intent is to verify a user’s identity, so one can tell the difference between, say, the real Elon Musk and an Italian parody account (the latter of which lost its blue check over the spoof). It’s unclear whether the company would continue to authenticate a user’s identity under the paid subscription model, or how it would do so. (Would Italian Elon Musk be able to buy a blue check back and continue sending calzones into space?)

Perhaps he can still be talked out of this course of action. Entrepreneur Jason Calacanis, brought into the company by Musk, ran an informal poll on Twitter asking how much users would pay to get the coveted blue check. As of this writing, with over 900,000 responses, an overwhelming 80% majority voted that they wouldn’t pay at all. “Interesting,” Musk replied to the tweet. Is it though?