Elon Caves, Gives Blue Checks Back to Twitter’s Biggest Celebs

Aly Song/ReutersAfter approximately two days of purging “legacy checkmarks,” Twitter CEO Elon Musk appears to be waving the white flag. “Friends told me my blue verified check was restored. It appeared that Musk had only restored the blue checks to users with the highest follower counts, seemingly caving on an issue that has deviled the platform since he made the decision to introduce his $8-a-month Twitter Blue verification system. “I will pay for your blue check – my gift to you,” Musk tweeted in response to a thread in which former Labor Secretary Robert Reich rejected his blue check and denounced the “oligarchs who have too much power over the Internet.”A troll, me?? From Pope Francis to former President Donald Trump, numerous notables who had not waded into the blue check debacle also saw their verifications restored after briefly losing them.