Elon Musk is looking to charge users of X (formerly Twitter) a monthly subscription fee to combat bots and generate revenue.
He made this known during a live-streamed event on X with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
Taking measure against hate speech
During the live conversation, Netanyahu brought up the challenge of preventing large armies of bots that amplify hate speech.
Musk replied: ‘The single most important reason we’re moving to having a small monthly payment for use of the X system is it’s the only way I can think of to combat vast armies of bots.’
Monthly subscription fee
Musk said adding a subscription would make it much more difficult for bots to create accounts, because each bot would need to register a new credit card.
He added that the company plans to come out with ‘a lower tier pricing,’ than what it currently charges for its X Premium subscribers, which is around $8 monthly.
This comes as the company struggles to regain trust with advertisers.
Musk also revealed the number of users on X during the conversation, claiming that the site has 550 million monthly users and generates 100 million to 200 million posts every day.
Musk said earlier this month that Twitter’s U.S. ad revenue was down by 60 percent and he blamed this on civil rights and consumers groups putting pressure on big brands.
