One of the first moves Elon Musk made after buying twitter was introducing a new subscription plan for people who desperately want to keep that blue checkmark by their username. Under his new policy for $7.99 a month anyone can become a verified account regardless of how many followers they have. On the surface this is great, because it exposes people who are obsessed with being seen as “important” on social media. However, it has already caused situation where a company allegedly lost a lot of money, and got exposed in the process, which people are loving, but businesses are wary of.
Details on How Insulin Maker Eli Lilly and Company Allegedly Lost Billions Because of Elon Musk’s Twitter Verification Blue Check Subscription Plan
Eli Lilly and Company is one of the biggest companies that sells insulin to people suffering from diabetes across the country. The profit they make from the sale of a medicine that’s the difference between life and death for many people has made the company worth billions. Things went left for them when someone made a fake Eli Lilly and Company twitter account called @EliLillyandCo, and paid to have blue checkmark, which made people feel it was real. The fake account then posted a tweet saying that Eli Lilly and Company was making insulin free.
Naturally the tweet went super viral as people around the country began to rejoice that a pharmaceutical company was actually doing something noble, rather than treating customers like numbers. However, the rejoicing was short lived as the real Eli Lilly and Company twitter account @LillyPad released a statement confirming the other account was fake, and also that they would not be making Insulin free. In the tweet they wrote, “We apologize to those who have been served a misleading message from a fake Lilly account. Our official twitter is @LillyPad”.
From a financial standpoint the damage from the fake tweet announcing insulin was free allegedly led to Eli Lilly and Company losing billions as their stock dropped drastically the next day.
Why is Eli Lilly and Company Charging So Much for Insulin if the Patent was Free?
The problems Eli Lilly and Company are facing financially due to this fake tweet fiasco is only scratching the surface of the Pandora’s Box that was opened. The question of whether it’s ethical for companies to charge people so much money for a medication that can save lives began to trend due to this situation, because when they had to refute the tweet saying Insulin was free, people began doing research on the origins of the Insulin patent.
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In 1923 Frederick Banting invented Insulin, but was 100% against putting his name on the patent. He was noble enough to realize that profiting from a discovery that would save millions of people was unethical. In the end his coinventors James Collip and Charles Best sold the insulin patent to the University of Toronto for $1 according to diabetes.org.uk. It is now considered a publicly funded invention.
Naturally Eli Lilly and Company is now facing backlash from many people who feel they are unethical for making insulin expensive when the inventor gave away the patent for free, because he was against doing just that. Is this another instance of Big Pharma being corrupt? If so, it was Elon Musk’s twitter verification subscription service that led to them getting exposed.
