Elon Musk’s Twitter asks some laid-off employees to come back; they don’t want to

The Elon Musk era of San Francisco tech company Twitter, based on just over a week of the Tesla CEO’s ownership, has been dictated by false starts, half-launched features and an overall sense of disarray and unease.

Over the weekend, Twitter launched — and then pulled back — Twitter Blue and the $8 verification system, seemingly heeding concerns about election fraud on the platform. Musk also seems to be unhappy about people making fun of him on Twitter, despite his public calls for more free speech on the platform.

Here is a running live blog of all the key Twitter and Chief Twit updates worth knowing.

Musk wants laid-off Twitter workers back (and they don’t care)

Nov. 7, 4 a.m.

Elon Musk may have regretted gutting Twitter by half.

Tech insider Casey Newton tweeted Saturday that some Twitter employees are getting called back in after getting sacked Friday. Those who are being asked to return, according to Insider, were key to Twitter’s operations; it is unclear why these individuals were chosen to be laid off in the first place.

And it seems like the workers are not all that interested in coming back; one worker, according to Insider, turned the offer down due to concerns that they were being “used, and think they will be fired again soon.”

The $8 Twitter Blue check is a bust

Nov. 7, 4 a.m.

The new iteration of Twitter Blue with $8 blue check verification is, by most measures, a flop. 

Upon the feature’s soft launch on iPhones Saturday, two SFGATE staffers who updated their devices did not see the option for verification available on their phones. Twitter Blue also still cost $5 as opposed to the $8 this new update is supposed to cost. 

And they’re putting off the launch of Twitter Blue 2.0 entirely until after Election Day, according to the a New York Times report Sunday. With this development, it does appears that Musk did acknowledge concerns about bad actors using the verification feature to spread misinformation about elections 

But while it appears that the decision was made, in part, out of an abundance of caution in the days leading up to the election, it also seems that the feature (at least from this weekend’s soft launch) continues to be half-baked. After all, it’s been just over a week since he announced the feature (and threaten to fire workers for not getting it out the door by Monday).

Elon Musk fights back against parodies of himself

Nov. 7, 4 a.m.

Elon Musk, seemingly at odds with the free speech absolutism and joking around he touted early into his ownership, appears to have set parameters on people parodying other accounts. The reason? People keep poking fun at him on Twitter.

Twitter jokesters of all stripes, from actors Kathy Griffin and Sarah Silverman to many, many random users, parodied Musk, tweeting unflattering photos of and jokes about the multibillionaire. Many of them — yes, even Griffin — received bans or temporary restrictions for having done so.

“Going forward,” Musk tweeted Sunday afternoon, “any Twitter handles engaging in impersonation without clearly specifying ‘parody’ will be permanently suspended.” He also cautioned: Any name change at all will cause temporary loss of verified checkmark.”