Despite Twitter Allowing Unlimited Changes, CEO Elon Musk Unable To Revert To His Original Username
Twitter doesn't have any caveat on the number of times users are allowed to change their handles.
Ever since Elon Musk took over Twitter with a $44-billion hostile takeover last year, the microblogging platform is trying hard to cope with the many changes it has introduced and eventually rolled back. It appears that the new CEO is a victim to one of those bugs, as he said on Thursday that he cannot go back to his original username after changing it to “Mr. Tweet”.
Musk is known to be eccentric when it comes to his Twitter activity. He keeps on changing his bio, switching from the likes of ‘Dogefather’ to ‘Chief Twit’ over time. If you were wondering, he doesn’t currently have a bio. On January 26, Musk tweeted that he changed his username (also known as ‘handles’ on the platform) to “Mr. Tweet”. He added that the platform is not allowing him to change his username back to “Elon Musk”.
Changed my name to Mr. Tweet, now Twitter won’t let me change it back 🤣
— Mr. Tweet (@elonmusk) January 25, 2023
Now, on Twitter’s own help page, no caveat has been announced by the platform as to how many times a user is allowed to change their username. However, it does mention that “Usernames containing the words Twitter or Admin cannot be claimed. No account names can contain Twitter or Admin unless they are official Twitter accounts.” Since Musk’s is a verified blue-tick account, there are no issues with him choosing “Mr. Twitter” as his username.
The help page also notes that users cannot change their usernames via the Twitter mobile app, as the ability is only available via twitter.com or mobile.twitter.com.
This isn’t the first time that Musk had to deal with unchangeable usernames. In November last year, Grammy-winning rapper Doja Cat tweeted that she changed her name to “Christmas” and now she cannot change it further, going on to seek help from Musk. To her tweet, Musk quickly responded, “Working on it.”
However, when Doja Cat finally got a chance to change her name, she went ahead and changed her handle to “fart” and that remained unchanged ever since.
Working on it!
— Mr. Tweet (@elonmusk) November 10, 2022
Doja Cat’s quirky act was in response to the various changes Musk was introducing to Twitter, including the monetisation of the ‘verified’ blue ticks, which allowed users to get a blue tick badge beside their handle as long as they paid a monthly subscription fee of $7.99. This led to a spate of fake accounts on the platform, including the like of a ‘verified’ Jesus Christ.
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