Elon Musk has written off one of the few items on his “Twitter 2.0” to-do list, shelving his Blue subscription service until further notice, according to an announcement made by the billionaire on tonight. “Holding off relaunch of Blue Verified until there is high confidence of stopping impersonation,” Musk tweeted. “Will probably use different color check for organizations than individuals.”
Twitter Blue officially launched on Nov. 5, shuttering less than a week later after waves of “verified” accounts masquerading as both companies and other people, including Musk, the Pope, and Rudy Giuliani, inundated the platform. On Nov. 15, Musk said he was “punting” the relaunch of the service to the end of the month “to make sure that it is rock solid.” Two days later, the entirety of the design team “leading” the Blue project were among the hundreds of employees who quit in the face of Musk’s infamous “hardcore” ultimatum, according to the tech blog Platformer.
