Almost two days after removing the “old checkmarks,” Twitter CEO Elon Musk appears to be waving the white flag.
Via Twitter on Saturday, some of the platform’s biggest names, from Stephen King to Chrissy Teigen, expressed their surprise when checkmarks suddenly appeared.
“Friends told me my blue checked check got refunded. I don’t know why. I paid nothing. I gave no number,” he tweeted. Seinfeld Star Jason Alexander.
It appears that Musk has only returned blue checks to users with the highest number of followers, and he seems to have succumbed to an issue that has taken the platform down since he made the decision to offer his own $8 per month Twitter Blue check system.
Musk’s decision Thursday to finally make good on his promise to verify only those who have paid the fee sent the platform into disarray, as mass de-verification opened the door to a host of celebrity scammers’ accounts.
But in classic musky fashion, Chief Twit first tried to cast his submission as an epic troll.
“I will pay for the blue check — my gift to you,” Musk tweeted in response to a thread in which former Labor Secretary Robert Reich rejected a blue check and denounced “the Internet’s power oligarchs.”
Musk later tweeted, “Check out Mate.”
However, this far-reaching move appears to be much more than a joke to those who have criticized the verification system.
From Pope Francis to former President Donald Trump, many notables who haven’t been through have seen their blue checks debacle after losing them for a brief period.
With the checks pouring in again, many of the celebrities who have been vocal about their decision not to pay the $8 made sure to let their followers know that the takeback wasn’t of their making.
“Oh my God, it was lepronized, shattered, king without my consent. No means no, guys,” tweeted tech journalist Kara Swisher.
Tiegen even gave her followers tips on how to rid themselves of the annoying badge, instructing Pod Save America host Jon Favreau to, “Change your name and it removes the checkmark. But then don’t talk about it again or you’ll get another one.” I’m serious lol “.
However, many others from Malala Yousafazi to Charlie Sheen were just excited to see Verification return.
“I don’t know what happened but I’m glad my blue tick is back so everyone knows I’m still Malala,” the girls’ education activist wrote on Twitter.
What happens next in the Elon-Twitter saga is anyone’s guess, but it seems pretty clear that Musk isn’t even close to dealing with all of this.
