Twitter Blue will probably "come back end of next week", billionaire owner Elon Musk said in a tweet yesterday.

Twitter on Friday paused its recently announced US$8 blue check subscription service on Friday as fake accounts mushroomed.

The coveted blue check mark was previously reserved for verified accounts of politicians, famous personalities, journalists, and other public figures.

But a subscription option, open to anyone prepared to pay, was rolled out earlier this week to help Twitter grow revenue as Musk fights to retain advertisers.

Several users reported on Friday that the new subscription option for the blue verification check mark had disappeared, while a source told Reuters the offering has been dropped.

"To combat impersonation, we've added an 'Official' label to some accounts," Twitter's support account - which has the "official" tag - tweeted on Friday.

The label was originally introduced on Wednesday - but "killed" by Musk just hours later.

On Thursday, in his first companywide email, Musk warned that Twitter would not be able to "survive the upcoming economic downturn" if it failed to boost subscription revenue to offset falling advertising income, three people who saw the message told Reuters.

- Reuters