I opened 5 tweets (through HN) today, and I am already rate limited.

How is this even possible? Twitter Blue subscribers?

Why is this news?

Krassenstein's individual payout isn't news, agreed, and makes for an unsuitable submission.

But Twitter initiating its revenue sharing program and making payments to many people under it certainly is news, and I'm surprised to not see it being actively discussed on this forum today. (I did a look under Active and searched on 'twitter' and found only this submission and this other one - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36716608 - which has had little discussion after 7 hours, and has also chosen a too specific instance as the submission link).

Few friends and celebrities Musk handpicked got paid. That's how you get the mark.

He did the same thing by forcing Twitter Blue checkmarks on people Musk handpicked, so they can look like they're endorsing a paid subscription.

Fool me once...

EDIT: And here's some data showing it:

https://twitter.com/hopeFlo55047951/status/16797278963723386...

This is not factual. I pay for twitter blue and don't follow elon musk. I even muted him + associated topic some time ago. I still got the blue checkmark. Even the data you link to shows that 10/29 people who got paid don't follow elon musk. However it makes sense that a majority does since a lot of blue subsribers do so because they like and trust him.

Twitter actually paid a bill?