Elon Musk has begun to consider several new ways to help bring X, formerly known as Twitter, into the realm of profitability that may become barriers to his vision of turning X into an everything app.
As Musk reaches his first anniversary of purchasing Twitter for $44 billion, he is looking for ways to make the historically struggling tech company a profitable endeavor. Twitter has traditionally struggled to turn profits despite the cultural weight it holds as one of the largest platforms for discussions of current events. Musk initially tried to make up for the shrinking number of advertisers by emphasizing the company's interest in its premium service, but X Premium has struggled to attract enough subscribers to make up for the difference. Now Musk is considering some new options.
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Here are Musk's latest efforts to make a profit from X.
New tiers
Musk announced on Friday that he is considering two new tiers to X Premium, the subscription service that gives users a blue checkmark and additional functionality. "One is lower cost with all features, but no reduction in ads, and the other is more expensive, but has no ads," Musk said.
Two new tiers of X Premium subscriptions launching soon.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) October 20, 2023
One is lower cost with all features, but no reduction in ads, and the other is more expensive, but has no ads.
Coders already found references in X's code to three separate premium tiers.
Charge everyone a dollar
Earlier this week, X announced that it had started testing a $1-a-year plan for new users in New Zealand and the Philippines. The program would require users to pay a dollar to access essential functions such as posting, reposting, and liking accounts. X argues that the fee is meant to reduce the number of bots on the platform rather than provide profits for the company.
Starting today, we're testing a new program (Not A Bot) in New Zealand and the Philippines. New, unverified accounts will be required to sign up for a $1 annual subscription to be able to post & interact with other posts. Within this test, existing users are not affected.
— Support (@Support) October 17, 2023
This…
Musk also intends to fight bots on X by implementing identity verification tools such as scans of government IDs or credit card information. The presence of bots on X has been a problem that Musk has complained about for years.
A return of advertising
Advertisers have hesitated to continue advertising on Twitter due to Musk's looser approach to content moderation. As a result, under Musk's tenure, ad sales have dropped, and the business has suffered a 50% loss in revenue. Musk hired former NBCUniversal CEO Linda Yaccarino to assure advertisers that X was worth their time and ad dollars. Yaccarino has said that she believes X will be profitable by 2024.
In pursuing profitability, X has opened the door to political advertising dollars in the 2024 campaigns. X touted itself as the "most used social platform for politics" in a pitch deck sent to advertisers this week.
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Everything app
Musk has continued to try and turn X to become an "everything app" akin to the China-based WeChat. So far, Musk has rebranded Twitter as X, added new functions such as improved Twitter Spaces, and initiated the necessary paperwork for X to operate a payment processor.