Aymeric Laporte and Riyad Mahrez poke fun at Elon Musk and his “weird” Twitter ideas

Manchester City stars Aymeric Laporte and Riyad Mahrez have both poked fun at Twitter owner Elon Musk and his “weird” ideas for the social media giant.

Musk acquired the largely text-based social media platform in October 2022 for $44 billion, and subsequently gaining control of the application and driving drastic changes to it with the sole aim of improvement.

Two months after the ownership change, Elon Musk then announced that he would be stepping down as CEO once a replacement had been found – although no such change has occurred to this date.

Under the changes made by Elon Musk, Twitter has been driving it’s pursuit of encouraging revenue generation on the platform, in a long-term attempt to financially reward it’s users and content creators.

As part of such changes, as well as in an attempt to reduce ‘bot’ accounts, legacy verification checkmarks began to be handed out to subscribers of the new ‘Twitter Blue’ scheme. However, all legacy checkmarks have now been removed from non-subscribers, including professional footballers and wider celebrities who are yet to sign up themselves.

In light of such changes, Manchester City stars Aymeric Laporte and Riyad Mahrez have reacted with humorous public messages to Elon Musk and the Twitter ownership.

The Spain international central defender tweeted on Thursday night, “Damn Elon what did u do lol,” while Mahrez stated, “Already lost it once, not scared of not having it anymore. I’m not paying for this weird ideas lol”.

Pep Guardiola’s first-team duo are in good spirits following the on-field success of Manchester City in recent months, as they continue to seek three trophies during the matches that remain this season.

City have returned to Manchester from Germany after successfully overcoming Bayern Munich across two-legs in the Champions League quarter-finals, courtesy of a 3-0 victory at the Etihad Stadium a fortnight ago and now a 1-1 draw at the Allianz Arena on Wednesday night.

Pep Guardiola and his players will now see a repeat of the 2022 Champions League semi-finals, as they take on European experts Real Madrid across two-legs in the last-four of this year’s competition, with a prize of a final against either of the Milan giants in Istanbul.