Twitter's blue ticks were reinstated on some media, celebrity, and other high profile accounts Saturday.
Pakistan captain Babar Azam, Indian batting great Virat Kohli, legendary footballer Cristiano Ronaldo and NBA champion LeBron James were among those who got their blue tick back.
Once a free sign of authenticity and fame, blue ticks must now be bought by subscribers for $8 a month, Twitter says.
Non-paying accounts that had a blue tick lost it on Thursday, as owner Elon Musk implemented a strategy, dubbed "Twitter Blue", to generate new revenue, announced last year.
The move meant that the legacy verification program and accounts that were verified under the previous criteria (active, notable, and authentic) lost their blue checkmark unless they subscribed to Twitter Blue.
Only a tiny fraction of blue-ticked users subscribed — less than 5 percent of the 407,000 profiles affected, according to Travis Brown, a Berlin-based software developer who tracks social-media platforms.
Musk tweeted Friday that he was "paying for a few (subscriptions) personally."
Musk's $44 billion takeover of Twitter in October last year has been marked by chaos and controversy, with some investors questioning if he is too distracted to also properly run his electric vehicle automaker Tesla Inc, in which he is personally involved in production and engineering.
“Twitter’s approach may help its business, but won’t help people identify who or what is worth listening to and the danger is that it will ultimately degrade trust that is critical for long-term sustainability,” says Nic Newman, a senior research associate at the Reuters Institute for the Study Journalism.
— Additional input from AFP.