Elon Musk is considering charging us to use X (Twitter)

Elon Musk has said he is considering introducing a monthly fee for all users of X, formerly known as Twitter. At a meeting with Prime Minister Isrtale Benjamin Netanyahu, the tycoon said that this measure would be necessary for solve the problem of bots in a social network.

“This is the only way I can think of to combat massive armies of bots,” said Musk, who bought the company last year for about $44 billion. He explained that developing a bot costs a fraction of a cent. But if someone has to pay for the profile, the effective cost becomes very high.

Musk added that every time someone wants to add a bot to the platform, they will need another new payment method. At the meeting, which was broadcast live, he did not say how much the final subscription would cost.. He described it as only a “small amount of money.”

Musk also shared new metrics for X. He said the platform now has 550 million monthly users who generate 100 to 200 million posts every day. It posted the same number of users last month. But I do not clarify, then or now, whether he meant active users or considered the “army of bots” that he complained about.

Twitter had 229 million “average monetizable daily active users” in May 2022., according to a statement made before the sale of the company. This is the metric Twitter used to promote how many people were likely to see their ad. By November last year, according to a report published by Musk himself, the network 259.4 million active users diaries.

New payment to compensate for Twitter Premium?

One of the most high-profile actions that Musk took after taking over the company was the launch of X Premium, formerly known as Twitter Blue. This paid service costs $8 per month.

In return, the social network offers subscribers some additional functions, such as the ability to edit posts or write longer texts. It also proposed an advertising revenue sharing model that allows all X Premium subscribers to choose a share of the platform’s advertising revenue.

Twitter has not officially disclosed how successful its current payment system has been. However, an independent investigation confirms that things did not go so well, despite the announced benefits. Near 820 thousand users will subscribe to X Premiumaccording to data compiled by third-party researcher Travis Brown, who has been tracking membership since its launch.

Musk says that ultimately paying everyone on Twitter is the solution to the bot problem, but he has also acknowledged the social network’s serious economic crisis several times. Last July, he confirmed that Twitter remained cash flow negative following a 50 percent drop in advertising revenue.