TWITTER'S verification symbol, the blue tick, will now cost $8 (£7) a month, Elon Musk has confirmed. 

Earlier this week The Verge reported that Musk wanted to launch a verification system which was reportedly going to cost users $20 a month.

Musk tweeted this evening confirming the change, criticising the current system in place.

The tweet reads: "Twitter’s current lords & peasants system for who has or doesn’t have a blue checkmark is b*** ****. Power to the people! Blue for $8/month.

"Price adjusted by country proportionate to purchasing power parity."

He added: "This will also give Twitter a revenue stream to reward content creators."

It comes after Mr Musk tweeted a link to an unfounded rumour about the attack on House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s husband.

Mr Musk’s tweet, which he later deleted, linked to an article by a fringe website, the Santa Monica Observer, an outlet that has previously asserted that Hillary Clinton died on September 11 and was replaced with a body double.

In this case, the article recycled a baseless claim that the personal life of Paul Pelosi, the speaker’s husband, somehow played a role in an intruder’s attack last week in the couple’s San Francisco home, even though there is no evidence to support that claim.

Mr Musk did so in reply to a tweet by Mrs Clinton. Her tweet had criticised Republicans for generally spreading “hate and deranged conspiracy theories” and said: “It is shocking, but not surprising, that violence is the result.”

In response to Mrs Clinton’s tweet, Mr Musk provided a link to the Santa Monica Observer article and added: “There is a tiny possibility there might be more to this story than meets the eye.”

The Los Angeles Times, the dominant news organisation in the southern California area where the Observer is located, has said the Observer is “notorious for fake news”.