Elon Musk Has Stated That X Will Charge Consumers a “Small Monthly Fee” To Utilize Its Service
Elon Musk, the CEO of X, said that the social network previously known as Twitter may no longer be free. Musk stated that the firm was “moving to a small monthly payment” for the usage of the X system in a live-streamed chat with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Monday September 19, 2023.
He stated that such a move would be required to address the platform’s bot problem.
“It’s the only way I can think of to combat vast armies of bots,” Musk said. “Because a bot costs a fraction of a penny — call it a tenth of a penny — but even if it has to pay…a few dollars or something,” he explained. Furthermore, each time a bot maker wished to create another bot; they would require a new payment method.
Musk did not specify the new subscription fee, but described it as a “small amount of money.”
Musk also disclosed fresh figures about X during the chat, stating that the site now has 550 million monthly users who create 100 to 200 million posts every day. However, it’s unclear if Musk includes automated accounts — that is, either good bots like news feeds or bad bots like spammers – in those figures.
This statistic also did not allow for a direct comparison with Twitter’s Pre-Musk user base, which was computed using a metric devised by Twitter dubbed “average monetizable daily active user,” or mDAU. This earlier statistic identified Twitter users who may be monetized by seeing its adverts. Twitter has 229 million mDAUs on its most recent public financial report in Q1 2022.
Musk did not elaborate on his intention to charge for X or when this would happen. However, since Musk took over the site last year, the business has been urging users to sign up for its premium membership offering, X Premium (formerly Twitter Blue). This $8 per month or $84 per year membership service includes features such as post editing, ad load reduction, preferred ranks in search and discussions, the option to publish lengthier articles, and more.
X does not publish the number of paid customers it has, but according to independent research, X Premium has not attracted the bulk of X users. According to one study, just 827,615 people presently subscribe to X Premium.
Musk is not unfamiliar with the concept of charging everyone for X. Last year, Platformer revealed that Musk was considering putting all of Twitter behind a paywall.
The primary discussion between Musk and Netanyahu today cantered on AI technology and its regulation, while hate speech on X was brought up. Musk stated here that he is “against antisemitism” and “anything that promotes hate and conflict.” Of course, Musk’s most recent feud saw him threaten to sue the Anti-slander League for slander, which has accused both Musk and X of being antisemitic.
