Elon Musk revealed his plans for Twitter, now rebranded as X, during a livestreamed conversation with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. He announced that X will introduce a monthly subscription fee to combat bots but didn’t specify the cost or features included.
X currently has 550 million monthly users generating 100-200 million daily posts. Musk also disputed claims of tolerating hate speech on the platform. His tenure at X has been marked by staff cuts, policy changes, and criticism from civil rights groups. Musk aims to make users pay to reduce bot usage and is seeking money transmitter licenses across the U.S.
Musk has contemplated the idea of placing Twitter behind a paywall in internal discussions, as reported by the industry news site Platformer. As CEO of both Tesla and SpaceX, Musk has acknowledged a significant 50% decline in X/Twitter’s ad revenue since his acquisition, leading to negative cash flow due to substantial debt.
Currently, X’s subscription program, previously known as Twitter Blue and now rebranded as X Blue under Musk’s leadership, starts at a monthly price of $8. One notable benefit of X Blue is the option to attain verified check-mark status, although the platform recently introduced the ability for subscribers to hide this verification badge from public view.
X Blue offers several advantages, including the ability to edit a post within a one-hour timeframe, a 50% reduction in advertisements, prioritized rankings for a user’s posts in conversations and searches, the capacity to post up to 25,000 characters (compared to the previous 280-character limit), and the option to upload videos up to 3 hours in duration or up to 8 gigabytes in size. Blue subscribers also have the opportunity to share in advertising revenue, initially based on ads displayed in response to their posts.
In October 2022, following Musk’s reluctant completion of the $44 billion Twitter acquisition, he removed Twitter’s senior management team and appointed himself as CEO. Subsequently, Musk oversaw extensive layoffs at Twitter, resulting in an estimated 80% reduction in the company’s workforce.
(Source: Lora Kolodny | CNBC | Todd Spangler | The Variety)
