Tesla CEO, Elon Musk, who recently inked a deal to buy Twitter on Tuesday hinted that the platform may charge a slight cost for commercial and government accounts while remaining free for casual users.
“Twitter will always be free for casual users, but maybe a slight cost for commercial/government users,” Musk said in a tweet. “Some revenue is better than none!” he added in another tweet.
Elon Musk made an offer of $44 billion last week to buy Twitter, where he disclosed his plan to enhance the platform with new features. The transaction will shift control of the social media platform populated by millions of users and global leaders to the world’s multi-billionaires.
Musk has criticized Twitter’s moderation. He wants Twitter’s algorithm for prioritizing tweets to be public, and develop features to grow business revenue, including new ways to make money out of tweets that contain important information or go viral.
Musk has also advocated user-friendly adjustments to the service, such as an edit button and defeating “spam bots” that send overwhelming amounts of unwanted tweets.
In tweets that were subsequently deleted, Musk suggested changes to the Twitter Blue premium subscription service, including slashing its price, banning advertising, and giving an option to pay in the cryptocurrency dogecoin.
Twitter has about 40 million daily active users in the United States, according to its most recent earnings report. Musk said he wanted the platform to be “as broadly inclusive as possible, where ideally most of America is on it and talking,” and as trusted as possible.
The billionaire also said he would make Twitter transparent about how tweets are promoted or demoted and wanted its software to be publicly available for critique. concerning a potential exodus of users, Musk said: “It’s a free country,” Certainly if anyone doesn’t feel comfortable with that, they will on their own accord go somewhere else. That’s fine,” he said.
Last week, Mr. Musk sold roughly $8.5bn worth of shares in Tesla, which led to speculation that he will use the money to help finance his buyout of Twitter.
Shares in the electric car company have lost more than 20% of their value in the last month, amid concerns that Mr. Musk would sell part of his stake in the company to fund the deal.
Mr. Musk is the world’s richest person, with an estimated net worth of around $250bn, mostly due to his Tesla stake.
He also has a controlling stake in the rocket company SpaceX, which is estimated to be worth $100bn.