On April 23, Shark Tank India judge and founder of Shaadi.com Anupam Mittal said on Twitter that he has dropped the plan to purchase a Tesla car. The development came after he lost his verified status on Twitter. Mittal is not the only legacy verified account that lost the Blue Tick. Almost all, except those with one million followers on the social media platform, no longer enjoy the verified status without paying for the Twitter Blue subscription.
Mittal tweeted, “Am cancelling my planned purchase of a Tesla … ticked off.”
Am cancelling my planned purchase of a Tesla … ticked off ?
— Anupam Mittal (@AnupamMittal) April 23, 2023
Notably, the legacy verified status was removed from the accounts on April 20 as per the announcement made by Twitter’s new owner and CEO, Elon Musk. However, after the backlash, Twitter silently returned the Blue Tick of several celebrities, politicians and prominent accounts that have more than one million followers. Tesla, Inc is an American multinational automotive company where Elon Musk is the CEO.
Many Indian politicians, including Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath, Congress leader Rahul Gandhi, Shah Rukh Khan, Alia Bhatt, Virat Kohli and others, were among those who lost the Blue tick but got it back owing to over a million followers. Interestingly, some celebrities had already bought subscriptions before Twitter could return the Blue Tick, including Indian superstar Amitabh Bachchan. After Twitter restored Blue Tick, Bachchan questioned what would happen to the money he paid.
After the Blue Tick was restored for the celebrities, many announced that they did not purchase the subscription as the message on these accounts said, “This account is verified because they are subscribed to Twitter Blue and verified their phone number.”
