Twitter Blue’s hiatus will be a short one, the platform’s CEO said, as the social media program looks to the subscription service to rescue it from a grim financial future.
Twitter suspended its Blue service Friday (Nov. 11) to deal with a wave of fraudulent accounts. Asked by a user on the platform Saturday (Nov. 12) when it might return, CEO Elon Musk responded: “Probably end of next week.”
Probably end of next week
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) November 13, 2022
As PYMNTS has reported, Twitter’s blue checkmark was once reserved for well-known people, but after Musk took over the company last month, it became something anyone who paid for subscription services could access.
Then the fake accounts appeared, with people impersonating Musk’s own companies Twitter and SpaceX, as well as Nestle, Lockheed Martin and BP. One fake account purported to be drugmaker Eli Lilly, who “announced” it was making insulin free.
Last week also saw Twitter debut and quickly delete a gray check for verified accounts. That symbol — another attempt to designate users’ accounts that had been verified as authentic by the social media platform — appeared for just a few hours before being removed. Musk suggested that users instead use the blue check that came with a Twitter Blue subscription.
“Blue check will be the great leveler,” he tweeted at the time.
Twitter’s checkmark crisis was one of several problems bedeviling the company following Musk’s takeover.
Last week, the new chief executive apparently told staff during a call — his first address to his employees — that the company could go bankrupt. He said it was urgent that the company make its Twitter Blue membership “something users will want to pay for.”
Meanwhile, Twitter has reportedly lost a number of top executives, including Yoel Roth, who oversaw Twitter’s trust and safety efforts, and Robin Wheeler, a sales vice president, as well as its chief information security officer, the chief privacy officer, and the chief compliance officer, all of whom apparently resigned last week.
