Huffmann is definitely coying his idol Elon with the verified account thingy… which he can then use to pressure advertisers into paying more, see https://www.engadget.com/x-tells-advertisers-to-spend-1000-per-month-or-risk-losing-verification-status-201528621.html?guccounter=1
Yet another thing that was done by the army of volunteer mods for over a decade, and now Reddit higher-ups are going “well that was cute and all, why don’t you go home and let us show how it’s really done.”