Status: 05/04/2022 12:26 p.m
Last week, Twitter approved Musk’s acquisition plans. One of the future visions of the Tesla boss for the short message service: Twitter could become chargeable for companies and authorities.
The Reuters news agency reports, citing insiders, that Elon Musk said in financing talks with banks that he was looking for new ways to make money from tweets. Musk announced on Twitter that the short message service would always remain free for private customers. He only considers “low costs” for commercial users and authorities.
A kind of subscription model is possible
The idea could be implemented in concrete terms in the form of a subscription model. Currently, Twitter makes its money almost exclusively from advertising – mainly in the form of tweets, which companies can inject into the news flow of users for money. Musk had already stated that he found subscription models for services like Twitter better – everything else gave large corporations too much power.
Twitter already experimented with “Blue”
Such a subscription model would not be completely new for the short message service: Twitter is already experimenting with subscription business models in its “Blue” offer, which is available in the USA, among other places. Customers of the so-called Twitter Blue model can, among other things, change finished tweets for up to 30 seconds. Tweet series are also displayed in a more legible manner, and there is the option of organizing saved tweets in folders. The subscription costs $2.99 a month in the US. A few years ago, however, Twitter’s first attempt at a fee-based alternative failed.
Musk wants to make more money from Twitter
The background to Musk’s consideration of charging companies and authorities for using the short message service is that Twitter is currently lagging behind other social networks such as Facebook and Instagram in terms of revenue growth. At the moment, Twitter has around 217 million users. According to Musk, the service thus serves a “niche”, which he says he now wants to change.
What’s next for Twitter?
Musk also wants to change some of the content of the short message service: The Tesla boss had repeatedly spoken out in favor of more freedom of speech and announced that he wanted to work for it after a takeover of Twitter. In the past, Twitter had pointed out false messages on the platform and even blocked accounts in cases of hardship.
A prominent example of this: the ban of ex-US President Donald Trump. Consequently, one of the big questions surrounding Musk’s free speech pledge is whether Trump could return to the platform. Trump, in turn, said he didn’t want to go back to Twitter. The presence on the platform, on which he once had more than 80 million followers, could be important for a possible candidacy in the 2024 presidential election.
Takeover is not final yet
Before Musk can transfer his vision for Twitter to the company, the acquisition has yet to be completed. So far, Musk had agreed on a deal worth around $ 44 billion with the Twitter board of directors. However, he is dependent on enough shareholders ceding their shares to him. Twitter and Musk aim to complete the acquisition by the end of the year.