Twitter Blue will ‘probably’ return by the end of next week: Elon Musk – National

Twitter Blue « will likely return at the end of next week, » billionaire owner Elon Musk said in a tweet on Saturday.

On Friday, Twitter suspended its recently announced $8 blue check subscription service on Friday as fake accounts spiked.

The coveted blue tick was previously reserved for verified accounts of politicians, celebrities, journalists, and other public figures. But a subscription option, open to anyone willing to pay, was rolled out earlier this week to help Twitter boost revenue as Musk battles to retain advertisers.

Several users reported on Friday that the new subscription option for the blue verification tick had disappeared, while a source told Reuters that the offer had been abandoned.

« To combat identity theft, we’ve added an ‘Official’ tag to some accounts, » the Twitter support account – which has the « official » tag – tweeted on Friday.

The label was originally introduced on Wednesday – but « killed » by Musk hours later.

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In his first company-wide email on Thursday, Musk warned that Twitter would not be able to « survive the coming economic downturn » if it failed to grow subscription revenue for make up for the decline in ad revenue, three people who saw the post told Reuters.

(Reporting by Rhea Binoy in Bengaluru; Editing by Jonathan Oatis)