Elon Musk says he's killed off parallel grey 'official' tick rolled out alongside bluetick

Twitter's new founder Elon Musk on Wednesday said that he has "killed" the grey checkmark that appeared beneath the username on the ‘official’ accounts, and was rolled out alongside Musk's controversial and hastily formulated $8 checkmark scheme.

"So now there are two verified checks. One that shows next to your profile in replies, in retweets, and everywhere else: It means you’re a Twitter Blue subscriber. The other one (“Official”) only shows up on certain profiles and on the timeline," Marques Keith Brownlee, also known professionally as MKBHD, the American YouTuber and professional ultimate Frisbee player, wrote. In a subsequent tweet, he notified that the grey checkmark was now gone. "Update: It's now gone," he tweeted. 

Replying to Brownlee's tweet, Elon Musk wrote that he "just killed" the feature. Further, the SpaceX CEO added that the Blue checkmark "will be the great leveler." Musk was referring to the blue ticks on the selected accounts that recognizes that this is an ‘official’ identity and authentic account of a prominent entity.

Musk introduces 'official' label to verified Twitter handles

Earlier, the celebrities' and publishers' accounts donned a gray “official” checkmark — in addition to the blue verified badge before Musk decided to remove it. In other notable changes, Musk introduced the 'official' label to the Twitter handles of world-renowned personalities, including Prime Minister Narendra Modi and some other ministers in an effort to separate distinctively the Twitter Blue account and verified accounts. The official badge was also seen on the Twitter handles of Home Minister Amit Shah, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman, External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar, Defence Minister Rajnath Singh, and some other ministers. Congress party leader Rahul Gandhi, some other opposition party leaders as well as sportspersons like Sachin Tendulkar also had the label appearing on Nov 9 as these new changes were being reviewed and implemented. 

Twitter official Esther Crawford in a tweet explained, "A lot of folks have asked about how you'll be able to distinguish between @TwitterBlue subscribers with blue checkmarks and accounts that are verified as official, which is why we're introducing the 'Official' label to select accounts when we launch." "Not all previously verified accounts will get the 'Official' label and the label is not available for purchase. Accounts that will receive it include government accounts, commercial companies, business partners, major media outlets, publishers and some public figures," she furthermore added.