Elon Musk ‘Kills’ New Official Label For Top Accounts Within Hours
Twitter on Wednesday unveiled — and almost immediately dismissed — a new “official” gray label for some top accounts as Elon Musk struggles to revive the influential platform following his $44 billion (roughly Rs. 3.6 lakh crore) purchase. .
“I just killed it,” Musk tweeted hours after the new tag was added to government accounts as well as those of major corporations and major media outlets.
“Please be aware that Twitter is going to do a lot of dumb things in the coming months. We’re going to keep what works and change what doesn’t,” the world’s richest man added to explain the U-turn.
The sudden change of heart will invite further scrutiny of Musk’s plans for Twitter a week after he laid off thousands of workers and slashed big money for advertisers, who are wary of the site’s direction.
The glitch comes ahead of the much-anticipated launch of a revised subscription model where the site’s popular blue checkmark will be available for $7.99 (roughly Rs. 650), though Musk said the price will be adjusted by country. . .
The blue tick became a symbol of the authenticity of the account and doubts arose whether prominent people or the media would pay for it. The official gray tag was seen by observers as a solution to that problem.
The launch of the new official label began on Wednesday and was on the accounts of companies such as Apple or BMW and public ones such as the White House and major media outlets.
But after a few hours, many of them were gone.
The accounts of Agence France-Presse, BBC News, Pope Francis or the controversial rapper Kanye West who received the “official” badge, saw this mention disappear.
‘A lot of work’
Esther Crawford, the executive who announced the idea of the gray tick on Tuesday, stressed that the official label will still be part of the relaunch, but that “we are focusing on the government and commercial organizations first.”
During a panel of advertisers on Twitter, Musk practiced damage control, admitting that there was still a lot of work to do to get the site to where he wanted it to be.
“We have a lot to do on the software side. I can’t stress it enough,” he said.
Musk took control of Twitter after a back-and-forth legal battle in which the mercurial tycoon tried to back out of a deal many believe overpaid him.
It emerged on Tuesday that Musk sold $4 billion (roughly Rs. 32,600 crore) shares in Tesla to help pay for the transaction in which he took on billions of dollars in debt.
The $7.99 subscription idea is seen as a way to overcome losses from advertisers since Musk took over the company.
Twitter last week laid off half of its 7,500 employees, which Musk said was necessary as the company was losing $4 million (about Rs. 32.6 crore) a day.
