Elon Musk’s Twitter may become paid. The billionaire points to governments and companies

Elon Musk announced his will to buy Twitter in mid-April (and received a positive response from the company’s management board two weeks later), shortly after acquiring over 9 percent. company shares. The buyout of the entire social network will cost him a trifle of $ 44 billion, but so far Musk argued that he is not buying Twitter for money, and has a higher goal. He wants the website to become “a bastion of freedom of speech on the Internet”.

Elon Musk has a new idea to monetize Twitter

It turns out, however, that the billionaire seems to be thinking quite intensely about ways to revive a social networking site that is already struggling to generate revenue. Now he announced – of course on Twitter – that access to the social networking site may become paid for commercial and government users.

This would probably mean the division into completely private and corporate / government accounts, which she would have to pay for the continued use of Twitter, but the cost, according to the billionaire, would be “small”. The richest man in the world did not specify whether he plans to collect payments also from accounts belonging to, for example, politicians, company presidents or journalists. He only promised that Twitter would be free for private users.

Twitter will always be free for regular users, but there may be a small fee for commercial / government users

– wrote the billionaire.

Even before signing the contract with Musek, Twitter promised that the service would remain free for individual users forever. However, the company’s authorities are already testing (so far only in the US, Canada, Australia and New Zealand) the Twitter Blue service, i.e. a monthly subscription option that gives access to additional functions for professionals.

Elon Musk doesn’t like advertising. But it is looking for ways to generate profit

A few days ago, information about new ideas for reviving Twitter leaked to the network, which Musk was to reveal in talks with bank representatives. The billionaire is currently looking for ways to finance its $ 44 billion. transaction, so he talks to large banks that could help him in this.

Apparently, one of Musk’s strategies assumes optimization of service costs, including staff cuts, i.e. layoffs. However, the billionaire now does not have access to non-public data on the platform’s earnings, but misjudges the company’s current financial performance. He also said – according to informants – that he knows how to make money on his businesses, and he gave Tesla and SpaceX as translations.

He also introduced bankers to the idea of ​​paying influencers to attract new users to Twitter, analogous to the business model that helped TikTok grow at an extraordinary pace. He also mentioned new subscription options that would allow paid but ad-free access to Twitter.

It seems quite probable, because the fact that Musk does not like advertising has been known for a long time. The billionaire argued that such a business model was susceptible to pressure from advertisers. It is true that he did not explicitly admit that he would like to get rid of them completely from Twitter, but he suggested it in one of the tweets. “The power of corporate influence on politics [Twittera- red.] it is much greater if Twitter is dependent on ad money, “he wrote. However, he removed the entry shortly after.

So perhaps the idea of ​​charging companies and government with payments for access to Twitter in conjunction with extending the Blue service would allow Musk to get rid of – at least some – Twitter ads. On the other hand, Musk may simply wonder about other ways to make Twitter generate satisfactory profits for the billionaire.