Elon Musk considers governments and businesses should pay to use Twitter. SpaceX CEO told banks last week that he will create new ways to monetize tweets and decrease costs at the social media platform company, according to Reuters. This, in exchange for sponsor companies agreeing to help fund his $44 billion purchase of Twitter Inc.
Of this $44 billion, $21 billion will come from his own pocket, $12.5 billion borrowed against his Tesla stock, and the remainder from bank loans.
In a series of tweets, Elon Musk affirmed that “Twitter will always be free for casual users, but maybe a slight cost for commercial/government users.” Musk also said that “Some revenue is better than none!” Musk also told the banks that he intended to create features to increase business revenue, such as new ways to monetize tweets that contain significant information or go viral.
Twitter will always be free for casual users, but maybe a slight cost for commercial/government users
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) May 3, 2022
Musk has not specified how much he wants to charge businesses and governments, or if certain groups such as non-profits and journalists would be exempt from such fees.
Twitter currently relies on advertising revenue, and advertisers are hesitant to be associated with polarizing content. As such, Musk is also pushing for fewer restrictions on the platform after the company has spent years strengthening its content moderation efforts to combat disinformation and hate speech.
At the MET Gala event, Tesla’s CEO indicated that he considers Twitter to be a niche platform and that he would like more users to join it. So far, Musk does not own Twitter, but he continues to make comments at public events, or tweets about small improvements he wants to implement in the social network.
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Source: https://www.reuters.com
