Elon Musk wants to nickle-and-dime Twitter users for features that were once free just 7 months after saying he 'didn't care about the economics'

He didn't care about the economics of the purchase after he offered to buy it.

Musk said that having a public platform that is broadly inclusive is essential to the future of civilization.

After seven months, the world's richest man seems to have changed his mind, suggesting ideas to his advisors and even his followers in order to make the platform profitable.

The blue check verification program was previously free to those who qualified, but will now cost $8 per month.

We have to pay the bills. Musk responded to complaints about the fee on his verified account.

Musk has other ideas he wants to squeeze out of his company. According to the New York Times, Musk and his advisers are considering adding a service that would allow users to send direct messages to high-profile users for a fee.

According to Musk's interactions with his followers on the social networking site, he has considered charging for user data and reviving the short-form video platform.

The rushed attempts to drum up new revenue streams at Twitter are at odds with how Musk spoke about the purchase of the social media platform last spring when he extolled the platform's virtue as a "defacto town square"

Musk has employees working 24 hours a day trying to find a way to make money from the platform as they will eventually have to pay huge interest payments. The company will have to pay $1 billion in interest as a result of borrowing $13 billion from banks. The cash flow for last year was less than $1 billion.

Musk has tried a number of ways to save money. On Thursday night and Friday morning, large swaths of the staff were laid off, either via email or by simply losing access to their email accounts.