--- title: "As He Realized His Mistake, Elon Musk Begged Twitter Staff to Turn Off the New Feature He’d Pushed For" description: "X-formerly-Twitter owner Musk reportedly regretted launching Twitter Blue almost immediately, according to an upcoming book." date: "2024-08-26" modified: "2024-08-26" authors: - name: "Victor Tangermann" job_title: "Senior Editor" link: "https://futurism.com/authors/victor" url: "https://futurism.com/mistake-elon-musk-begged-twitter-staff-turn-off-new-feature" categories: - "Elon Musk" - "Future Society" - "The Industrialists" tags: - "elon musk" - "social media" - "twitter" --- # As He Realized His Mistake, Elon Musk Begged Twitter Staff to Turn Off the New Feature He’d Pushed For ![X-formerly-Twitter owner Musk reportedly regretted launching Twitter Blue almost immediately, according to an upcoming book.]() *\Image: Getty / Futurism\* In late 2022, long before multi-hyphenate billionaire Elon Musk [renamed Twitter to X](), rumors swirled that he was getting ready to shake up the platform's verification system. His proposal: [charge each subscriber for the privilege of being verified]() without ever doing the homework of actually verifying their identity — a short-sighted and ultimately disastrous decision that Musk reportedly regretted almost immediately. As detailed in an upcoming book titled "Character Limit: How Elon Musk Destroyed Twitter," reporters Ryan Mac and Kate Conger lay out in detail how Musk's blue checkmark scheme, called Twitter Blue, [collapsed in on itself]() and compounded the company's financial crisis. (The pair recently [published a story]() adapted from their new book in the *New York Times.*) The 2022 US midterm elections took place on November 8, a day before Musk started charging users for a blue checkmark. When the switch was made, [all hell broke loose](), with countless newly verified accounts masquerading as politicians, celebrities, and companies. One account parading as Nintendo shared a [viral image of Super Mario giving the finger](). Advertisers, who had gotten wind of the mayhem, started reaching out to Twitter's sales teams, threatening to pull their ads. According to Mac and Conger's sources, Nike executives threatened to never advertise on the platform again. And Musk was terrified of the prospect of losing hundreds of millions of dollars in advertising revenue. "Turn it off," he reportedly told an engineer. "Turn it off!" Twitter Blue, a $8-a-month subscription service, was unlikely to stem all the bleeding. The company was already dealing with considerable debt. Musk [had to borrow around $13 billion]() for his doomed $44 billion acquisition. And business hasn't exactly looked up since Twitter Blue launched just under two years ago. Even [more advertisers have abandoned the platform]() over Musk's failure to rein in a [tidal wave of disinformation and hate speech]() — something he's been [actively contributing to himself](). Just last week, the [*Wall Street Journal* called the acquisition]() the "worst buyout for banks since the financial crisis," with banks unable to offload their debt without incurring major losses. Musk has bounced back and forth between telling advertisers to literally "[fuck" themselves]() and [begging them to return](). Earlier this month, Musk [sued a global advertising alliance out of existence](), accusing it of conspiring against him. Twitter has also gone [through several rounds of mass layoffs](), with Musk [imploring them to come back weeks later](). In short, Musk's ill-informed takeover has left a major hole in his reputation as a successful entrepreneur. His incompetency when it comes to running a social media platform has been on full display. Meanwhile, X-formerly-Twitter is still rife with impersonators and scammers taking advantage of Musk's poorly thought-out Twitter Blue scheme. And engineers could only helplessly watch as the billionaire brought down the walls around them. "It was such an obvious train wreck, that the main job of everyone on the team was to make sure it was the safest train wreck possible," one Blue worker wrote in a journal, as quoted by Mac and Conger. **More on Twitter:** *[Elon Musk Tweets Plagiarized Article Bylined by Fake Writer]()* ## Author I've been at Futurism since 2017, where my role has evolved to encompass design, writing, and increasingly editing. I've always been fascinated by space exploration and advanced transportation, which I've leaned into by interviewing luminaries in those fields while closely following the dimensions of policy and regulation that allow next-generation projects to succeed -- or, sometimes, to fail. I'm also keenly interested in the effects of generative AI on society, policies, and democratic institutions, as well as clean energy, physics and biology, and the vagaries of tech leadership. My work for Futurism has been cited by publications including Ars Technica, Gizmodo, PC Magazine, Jalopnik, Fox News, and the New York Post. I spent my childhood living in locations including Manila, the Philippines, and Geneva, Switzerland, attended McGill University, and now live in Toronto, Canada. Before Futurism I worked at AskMen and a small photography studio. In my free time, I'm an avid gardener, foodie, and craft beer lover, as well as a maker of artisanal hot pepper sauces. I have a magnificent dog named Freida. ### Author social links [Bluesky]()