Is Elon Musk Considering Charging Everyone for Twitter/X? Lower Tier Pricing System Explained
Elon Musk, a business magnate and an investor, is doing all he can to make a buck through social media platform X, formerly Twitter. He wants to flip the switch and make X a subscription-based platform.
The idea of charging the users for using X came up during an ongoing conversation focused on AI. It featured Benjamin Netanyahu, the Prime Minister of Israel. While his first task with the platform was to offer verification only for those who signed up for Twitter Blue, according to the latest reports, users will have to pay the subscription fees, even to log into their account.
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Elon Musk Might Charge All Twitter/X Users
During this Monday’s discussion with Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu in a meeting that was live streamed on X, Musk expressed his desire to charge the users of X. He said, “[We’re] moving to a small monthly payment for use of the X system.”
Musk even claimed it’s the only way to eliminate the bots problem, suggesting that the pricing structure would be lower-tier than the $8 monthly charge for Blue Tick, the premium subscription service. No mention was made of the timing of the plan’s implementation to charge the users or how much would the actual cost be.
For Elon Musk, it’s all about 550 million monthly active users and 100 million- 200 million daily posts they create on this social network. As a businessman, he seems to have got his mind up to something, and the users just need to tag along.
According to Platformer, Musk mentioned the idea during the internal conversation to put Twitter completely behind the paywall. The SpaceX CEO said there was a plunge in Twitter/X ad sales by 50% since he got in charge. Later, he posted on 15th July, stating there is still a lot of negative cash flow because of a 50% decrease in advertising revenue and the heavy debt load.
Elon Musk Explained The Reason For His Decision
X users already had a taste of Elon Musk and his effort for monetizing X/Twitter after he was able to reprice and rejig the subscription service Twitter Blue or X Premium. At $8 per month, Musk made the blue tick verification badge the paid subscription perk, rendering it meaningless. There were other perks, too, like the ability to edit posts in a one-hour window and more, but people were not up to paying.
While X users are still trying to get used to the new changes, Elon Musk is still on the line to bring in more means to make money through X. In the meeting with Netanyahu on X, the SpaceX CEO said,
“We’re actually going to come out with lower tier pricing. We want it to be just a small amount of money [and] in my view, this is actually the only defense against vast armies of bots.”
LIVE: Speaking with @elonmusk about how we can harness the opportunities and mitigate the risks of AI for the good of civilization. https://t.co/XiAQwOXzcP
— Benjamin Netanyahu – בנימין נתניהו (@netanyahu) September 18, 2023
Currently, there aren’t further details about this new subscription-based-platform plan available, but it’s presumed X will soon launch cheaper verification. It might cost around $3 to $4 per month, offering X Premium package basics or just the verification tick to confirm the identity. The platform can even integrate it with the ID verification process, charging a small fee for confirming the ID through the 3rd-party partner au10tix.
Source: X
