Eli Lilly stock plummets after Twitter blue troll promises free insulin

Billionaire Elon Musk’s changes to social media giant Twitter have already cost some companies billions of dollars.

Pharmaceutical company Eli Lilly (LLY) fell 4.37% on Friday to $352.30, with a market capitalization of more than $15 billion – after a Twitter Blue verified account impersonating the brand promised free insulin. is.

The tweet, sent around 1:30 pm Thursday, read: The post stayed online for hours and amassed over 3,000 likes and hundreds of retweets.

As of Friday, the impersonator account @EliLillyandCo was no longer verified and its tweets were set to private.

Eli Lilly’s official account apologized Thursday afternoon, writing, “Our official Twitter account is @lily pad”

The company joins scores of other blue checkmarks plagued by parody accounts after Musk announced a new policy that allows anyone to purchase “verification” for $8 a month. , celebrities, brands and even pranksters impersonating Musk himself are flooding the site with hateful messages.

In response, Musk reportedly suspended Twitter Blue sign-ups on Friday afternoon, less than 48 hours after it began. to help address the problem.” Platformer Zoe Schiffer.

Confused users can find out who was verified before Twitter Blue and who paid $8 for the privilege by clicking the checkmark in their profile. Musk also confirmed the rollout of “official” badges for prominent companies and other entities. This is a gray badge that only appears on the timeline under the user’s name.

Eli Lilly, along with pharmaceutical companies Novo Nordisk and Sanofi, currently dominate the insulin market. Together, they account for 90% of the total US insulin supply, as well as the world’s.

The three men who discovered the life-saving drug insulin initially sold their patents to the University of Toronto for $1 each. Surf Frederick G. Bunting, one of his team members, said: “Insulin belongs to the world, not mine.”

Eli Lilly was the first company to mass produce insulin, shipping the first commercial supply in 1923. Today, the company offers a program in the US that charges $35 for insulin refills.

The company did not respond to Starr’s request for comment by the time of publication.

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