Trevor Noah Slams 'Ghost-Looking' Elon Musk Over $8 Twitter Verification Fee

Trevor Noah is speaking up against Elon Musk's plan to commercialize Twitter verification. After purchasing the social media platform in late October, the tech CEO has been rolling out plans to get everyone verified for a fee.

At first, Musk wanted to charge users a whooping $20 per month for them to get or retain the prestigious blue mark, but he later settled on an $8 fee, explaining his decision to make everyone leveled and abolish the "lords and peasants" system.

However, not everyone is pleased with the development, especially Noah.

Earlier this week, "The Daily Show with Trevor Noah" released its second of four live tapings in Atlanta, Georgia, where Noah switched up his hosting style to a standup comedy routine. During his 10-minute monologue, the comedian addressed Musk's plan but not without throwing some major shade.

Noah started off by calling the Tesla CEO "the guy who always looks like a ghost, whether it’s Halloween or not " before touching on the subject. "For months now, Musk has said that he wanted to own Twitter. And the reason he wanted to own Twitter is because he wanted to make sure that it’s a haven for free speech," he said.

The South African native joked about how Twitter hadn't always been a place where people were afraid to say their minds, saying, "because let’s be honest, up until now, you know, people have really held back on Twitter. I always find myself scrolling and thinking, what do you really think? Why are you so reserved, sir?"

The "Born A Crime" author then referenced the report of the usage of the N-word increasing by almost 500% in the first 12 hours of Musk becoming the owner of the social media platform. Always one to find the humorous point of view, he joked, "You don’t know! Who knows what it is? It could be racist, yeah. It could be….[People] feel free and feel emboldened to say it now. Or it could be Black people watching Elon take over like, ‘This n****."

Noah tackled the subject of Musk trying to promote free speech with his ownership, saying, "He’s going crazy. Here’s my question. I really want to know this. Why is it always when the free speech people—all those people who are like, we want free speech!—why do they never want to use their free speech to say words like ‘perambulate’ or ‘pusillanimous.’ Like, it’s never stuff like that, have you noticed? They’re like, ‘We want free speech! We want free speech!’ OK, what do you want to say? ‘N****.’"

The comedian then discussed Elon's plan to monetize Twitter, saying the Space X founder is "scrambling" to find a way to make some money from his controversial $44billion purchase. He noted that because Twitter isn't a profitable company, the entrepreneur came up with the new model to charge people for verification.

"Because I guess he’s hoping that everyone else on Twitter will make terrible financial decisions like he did," Noah mocked. He then ridiculed the idea of spending $8, saying there were several better ventures people could spend the money on. He directly tackled Musk's reason for the new implementation.

"So, here’s my question: If you’re trying to create equality on Twitter, why charge anyone to be verified? Just give everyone a blue checkmark, then. Why are you charging people?" Noah wondered.

The Primetime Emmy Award winner continued, "It doesn’t make sense to offer it as ‘equality’ and then put a price on it, do you get what I’m saying? Can you imagine if MLK was out there like, ‘I have a dream. I have a dream…and I’ll tell you all about it for $8.99 a month.’ It wouldn’t be the same thing."

Concluding his discussion on the topic, Noah accused Musk of trying to hide his desire to make money behind a noble cause like equality. He then offered a piece of advice to the billionaire, saying, "I think this $8 a month thing is ridiculous. If you ask me, if Elon Musk wants to make money from Twitter, what he should do [is], don’t charge people for blue checkmarks. Charge white people to say the N-word. Twitter will be the most profitable company in history. Racists will be taking out loans."

Noah isn't the only that has expressed concern about the rise of hate speech since Musk became the owner of Twitter. Last week, iconic basketballer LeBron James responded to a report on the rise of racist remarks since the business magnate took over.

The Los Angeles Lakers player wrote, "I don't know Elon Musk and, tbh, I could care less who owns Twitter. But I will say that if this is true, I hope he and his people take this very seriously because this is scary AF. So many damn unfit people saying hate speech is free speech.."