A user had publicly made a statement that Twitter Employees Charged $150000 for account to get verified

To which Elon Musk has responded by saying YUP

The user had revealed that the Twitter Employees used to demand $15000 Secretly to get verified status in account

So this is not the first Time Twitter is charging for verification on accounts

Instead Elon Musk's official pricing $8,

is too cheap than this secret fee which Twitter used to charge