San Francisco, California - Confusion reigns over the direction of Twitter after the sign-up option for its Twitter Blue subscription disappeared barely a day after going live and gray "Official" badges returned less than two days after Elon Musk ordered their removal.

It comes as more high-profile staff responsible for vital areas such as trust and safety, data privacy, cybersecurity, and complying with regulations suddenly left the social media giant.

On Friday morning, the option to sign up for Twitter Blue, which gives users a blue verification badge if they pay $8 a month, had vanished from Twitter’s iOS app despite only being introduced on Thursday.

At the same time, new gray Official badges for large organizations began reappearing on some Twitter profiles less than two days after Musk halted their introduction hours after their own initial launch, calling it "an aesthetic nightmare."

Twitter’s official support account said the gray badges had been reintroduced to help "combat impersonation" on the site.

They had been created as a way of differentiating between verified accounts that had been awarded a blue tick previously by Twitter after being confirmed as authentic and those which had been bought under the new Twitter Blue scheme.

The confirmed departure of Yoel Roth, Twitter’s head of trust and safety, has been labelled a major blow to the site after many raised concerns about the Twitter Blue subscription being abused by users buying a blue tick to pose as real people and businesses to commit fraud and spread misinformation on the platform.

Roth, previously a little-known executive, had become the public face of Twitter’s content moderation after Musk took over and who had been praised by him for defending Twitter’s ongoing efforts to fight harmful misinformation and hate speech.

Musk began firing thousands of Twitter staff last week as part of cost-cutting measures and told workers in his first address to them on Thursday that he was banning remote working and that "difficult times" lay ahead and which might end with the collapse of the social media platform if they cannot find new ways of making money.

"Without significant subscription revenue, there is a good chance Twitter will not survive the upcoming economic downturn," he said.

A number of advertisers are said to have paused advertising with Twitter – the company’s biggest source of revenue – over the ongoing disarray at the firm.

Regulators have now said they are watching events at Twitter with "deep concern" and warned Musk that no chief executive is "above the law."