The IT Nerd

Remember when Elon Musk threatened to take away the blue checkmarks of verification from everyone unless they signed up for Twitter Blue? Well, ignoring the fact that the checkmarks have not disappeared, very few people who have been previously verified have signed up for Twitter Blue according to this:

Only 12,305 of roughly 420,000 legacy verified accounts have subscribed to a paid Twitter Blue plan as of Tuesday. That’s just above 3 percent of the celebrities, pro athletes, influencers, and media personalities who make up the platform’s power users.

While Twitter Blue does provide some additional features such as being able to edit tweets and write longer posts, the major selling point promoted to users is the ability to simply get a checkmark next to your username by paying $8 per month (or $11 on mobile devices.) 

The latest Twitter Blue data comes from independent researcher Travis Brown, who has been tracking Twitter data since January. Brown’s data accounts for roughly 90 percent of all Twitter Blue subscribers. Previous internal Twitter Blue data leaks have matched with Brown’s estimates.

The bad news doesn’t end there for Elon:

If one adds government accounts with grey verified badges and business accounts which appear alongside a gold checkmark to the pool of legacy verified Twitter Blue subscribers, those numbers go up just slightly to around 15,000 users (or 3 and a half percent of these accounts in total).

Again, this is after Elon Musk threatened to take away approximately 420,000 users’ verified blue checkmark badges. And this is also following Musk’s announcement that only Twitter Blue subscribers would be promoted in Twitter’s default “For You” feed. 

With its biggest motivator yet to subscribe – the removal of the blue tick – Twitter was seemingly unable to even double its legacy verified Twitter Blue subscribers. One week before the April 1 date, Twitter had only converted 7,901 government, business, and legacy verified accounts into paying subscribers, so there was a slight uptick in subscribers as the April 1 date loomed. However, many celebrities – from LeBron James to Jack Black – have since gone public saying that they were not planning to pay for Twitter Blue.

And if to further highlight how ineffective Elon has been in terms of getting people to sign up for Twitter Blue, there’s this:

Over the course of the nearly 4 months the subscription service has been live, Twitter has just barely crossed the 500,000 Twitter Blue subscriber threshold, according to Twitter Blue data from Brown. This would put Twitter Blue’s revenue at approximately $4 million per month. 

Honestly, Elon looks less and less like the genius that he portrays himself to be. And I have to believe that he lies awake at night wishing he never bought Twitter as it is exposing him for what he is. A charlatan who has gotten lucky in life, and was able to build a public image around it. But because of Twitter, those days are over and Elon is likely re-evaluating his life choices.

If any one thing shows that Elon Musk is incapable of managing ants at a picnic, never mind Twitter, this story from NBC illustrates this perfectly:

Before Ryan Garcia bought Twitter Blue, he was unverified on the platform. He hoped that buying a subscription to the service, which offers verification and other features, would help him reach a wider audience.

But he found the service cumbersome and decided to unsubscribe, last paying for the service in February. 

To his surprise, though, Twitter has yet to remove his verified check mark.

Garcia is among eight former Twitter Blue subscribers who spoke to NBC News who gained verification through the service, canceled their memberships, and have kept their check marks weeks past the end of their subscriptions.

“If I woke up tomorrow and I saw my verification badge was gone, I would be overjoyed,” Garcia said.

The Twitter Blue users described being frustrated with their continued verification, saying they’re subjected to dayslong reviews when they want to change either their profile picture or their display name. Despite still being verified, they no longer have access to an edit button or long-form tweets, which are perks of the subscription. Technology news website Gizmodo first documented that some Twitter Blue users retained their verification after canceling their subscriptions.

Talk about a #fail. You would think that this process would be automated. But clearly not. Either that or like other things that Elon has done in regards to Twitter, he didn’t think through what would happen if someone stopped subscribing to Twitter Blue. Either way, it illustrates what a gong show his management of Twitter is.