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Musk confirmed that he is looking for solutions to reduce the cost of using the X site
Elon Musk said that all users of the social networking site “X”, formerly known as Twitter, may have to pay fees to access the site.
In a conversation with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Musk confirmed that operating a payment system is the only way to confront the automated accounts “bots” that use the platform.
The CEO of Tesla, SpaceX and X said: “We are preparing to move to a system that requires a monthly payment to use the system.”
The BBC tried to contact X Company to obtain more details, but has not yet received a response.
It is not yet clear whether what Musk said were just spontaneous statements or an indication of confirmed plans that have not yet been announced.
The owner of the social networking site
Since his acquisition of Twitter last year, Elon Musk has sought to incentivize users to pay for an improved service, which is now called “XPremium.”
Indeed, the premium service has begun to give users with paid accounts more features, such as the volume of tweets and increased exposure on the platform.
However, users can still access the X website for free.
In addition to the revenue generated by imposing fees on users, Musk stressed that imposing fees aims to process automated accounts.
“The cost of launching a bot is only a fraction of a cent, but if someone had to pay a few dollars or something like that, a small amount, then the cost of launching bots would go up significantly,” Musk said.
Users of XPremium services pay $8 per month in the United States to benefit from it. The price varies according to the country in which the subscriber resides.
The richest man in the world said that he is now studying ways to provide cheaper services to users.
“We’re going to come up with lower prices for services,” Musk said. “So we just want it to be a small amount.”
He added: “We are having an extensive discussion, but from my point of view, this is the only line of defense against massive armies of automated accounts.”
However, the risk is that if use of the X site is limited to paying subscribers, the site may lose a large segment of its users, which would lead to a decline in advertising revenues, which currently represent the bulk of the company’s income.
Musk’s conversation with the Israeli Prime Minister also touched on anti-Semitism on X.
The Anti-Defamation League accused the Musk-owned platform of not doing enough to stop anti-Semitic content.
The association said in a statement that Musk was “involved with and promoting anti-Semitism.”
Earlier this month, Musk said his company would sue the association to “clear the name of our platform.”
During that conversation, Musk stressed to Netanyahu that he is “against anti-Semitism.”
Netanyahu acknowledged that balancing freedom of expression and moderation in content was a challenge, but he urged Musk to strike the right balance.
“I hope you will be able to stop anti-Semitism and also any mass hate content for people represented by anti-Semitism,” he said.
