Lakers News: LeBron James Remains Verified On Twitter Despite Refusing To Pay

The LA All-Star has one of the platform's few lingering legacy blue checkmarks.

Today, new-ish Twitter CEO Elon Musk, in a misguided attempt to wring money out of the platform's users with advertisers rampantly fleeing (Twitter has reportedly lost 89% of its revenue since he bought it for $44 billion last fall), has ditched the blue checkmarks allocated to verified users -- well, some of them, anyway.

Los Angeles Lakers All-Star LeBron James has been able to keep his, though other star players like rarely-healthy Pelicans forward Zion Williamson and Golden State Warriors point guard Stephen Curry have had theirs revoked.

According to Jay Peters and Alex Heath of The Verge, a Twitter representative reached out to James about being able to retain his checkmark, "compliments of Elon Musk," despite the four-time champ's refusal to pay an $8 monthly fee for verification. James apparently did not accept, though he got to hold onto the checkmark anyway.

The 38-year-old James is one of the top NBA personalities on the app, with 52 million followers. If you take a gander at the 19-time All-Star's badge, a pop-up notes that “this account is verified because they are subscribed to Twitter Blue and verified their phone number.”

Musk is doing his darnedest to destroy the platform, which had emerged as one of the best resources for collated news among all social media avenues.

Twitter’s press email responded to The Verge writers' inquirers with a very helpful feces emoji.

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