Elon Musk Signals He'll Charge Companies, Governments to Use Twitter
Twitter under Elon Musk may no longer be entirely free for big brands and governments.
On Tuesday, Musk signaled he’ll try to extract revenue from his $44 billion takeover of Twitter by requiring companies and governments to pay up in order to continue reaching their followers on the social media platform.
“Twitter will always be free for casual users, but maybe a slight cost for commercial/government users,” he wrote in a tweet, later adding: “Some revenue is better than none.”
If instituted, the fee requirement might annoy Twitter’s commercial and government users. But apparently Musk believes the free ride approach is unsustainable. “Ultimately, the downfall of the Freemasons was giving away their stonecutting services for nothing,” he tweeted.
Last week, Reuters also reported Musk is mulling charging users to embed or quote tweets from verified individuals or groups on the platform. The Tesla CEO has previously said one of his goals for Twitter is to reduce its dependency on ad revenue.
The subscription-based Twitter Blue launched last fall for $2.99 and offers ad-free access to articles from certain publications and the ability to undo tweets. Twitter also sells licenses that lets partners access, search, and analyze historical and real-time data on the platform.
Musk is also betting he can turn Twitter into a lucrative social media venture. To buy the company, he’s secured $16 billion in loans from investment firms. Once the acquisition is complete, Twitter will become a private company. However, Musk could decide to relist the company on the stock market in as little as three years, according to The Wall Street Journal.
But in the near-term, Twitter itself is warning investors the company could face tumultuous
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