Twitter unveils new ‘grey tick’ – Elon Musk ‘kills’ it just hours later
- An ‘official’ label added to government and media accounts was scrapped almost immediately after launch
- Musk says the company will do ‘lots of dumb things’ in coming months, promising to ‘keep what works and change what doesn’t’
Twitter on Wednesday unveiled – and then almost immediately scrapped – a new grey “official” label for some high-profile accounts as Elon Musk struggles to revamp the influential platform following his US$44 billion buyout.
“I just killed it,” Musk tweeted just hours after the new tag was added to government accounts as well as those of big companies and major media outlets.
“Please note that Twitter will do lots of dumb things in coming months. We will keep what works & 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 drew a massive drop in spending by advertisers, who are wary of the site’s direction.
The botched roll-out came ahead of the hotly anticipated introduction of a revamped subscription model in which the site’s famed blue tick would be made available for a fee of US$7.99, though Musk has also said the price would be adjusted by country.
The blue tick has been a mark of an account’s authenticity and doubts emerged that public figures or media outlets would pay for it. The official grey tag was seen by observers as a workaround to solve that problem.