Blue tick saga: Elon Musk says Twitter Blue 'probably' coming back end of next week

Just two days after the microblogging giant paused its $8 blue check subscription service, billionaire owner Elon Musk said on Sunday that Twitter Blue will probably "come back end of next week". Several users reported on Friday that the new subscription option for the blue verification check mark disappeared. Later, news agency Reuters reported that the offer has been withdrawn, citing an official source.

Twitter's $7.99/month service that enabled users to pay for a verification check mark was launched almost two weeks after the world's richest man took over the company. Soon after Twitter rolled out the paid blue tick feature, things went haywire. Fake accounts of former US President Donald Trump - who is banned from the social network, gaming character Super Mario, Laker's player LeBron James and even Jesus Christ popped up - all carrying a blue verification tick. Owing to this, Elon Musk decided to pause the Twitter Blue services and subscription temporarily.

Last Wednesday, Twitter rolled back its 'Official' labels hours after launching it. Twitter's decision to roll out the 'Official' label was to provide a second verification label to limit confusion between legitimate accounts and those that pay for their blue ticks.

A day later, in his first company-wide email, Elon Musk warned that Twitter would not be able to "survive the upcoming economic downturn" if it failed to boost subscription revenue to offset falling advertising income, three people who saw the message told news agency Reuters.