Elon Musk is reportedly considering putting Twitter behind a paywall in another attempt to monetize the site, as the company reports that it has actually gained users since the Tesla CEO took over last week.
The 51-year-old billionaire has discussed the idea of creating a paywall for all Twitter users with tech investor David Sacks, sources familiar with Musk’s plans told Platformer on Monday.
The proposal comes as the company reported that it has actually gained more users since he became CEO, tweeting over the weekend: “The number of Twitter users has increased significantly around the world since the deal was announced.”
It remains unclear what a paywall for Twitter might look like, but a person familiar with the plans said one option would be to let everyone use the site for a certain amount of time each month and pay a subscription to keep browsing.
The amount a user spends to get past the paywall would then come on top of the $8 Twitter users can spend each month for verified blue ticks as Musk tries to monetize the site he bought for $44 billion.
But the SpaceX founder is also struggling to hold on to existing revenue streams for the sites after several advertisers fled the site fearing the platform won’t be a “safe place for brands.”
Elon Musk is said to be discussing the possibility of adding a paywall for all Twitter users. He is pictured here leaving Twitter’s headquarters in New York City
It’s just one of many ways Musk is trying to cash in on the social media company he bought for $44 billion
Over the weekend, Musk tweeted that “The number of Twitter users has increased significantly around the world since the deal was announced”
In an apparent effort to get advertisers like General Mills, Audi and Pfizer back on the site, Twitter executives distributed an internal FAQ to their sales team on Monday to refer to when talking to potential advertisers.
The FAQ, obtained by The Verge, emphasizes that more users have joined social media since Musk took over.
It says Twitter’s monetized daily users — a measure advertisers use to determine the profitability of a site — has grown by more than 20 percent while “Twitter’s largest market, the United States, is growing even faster.”
According to the FAQ, Twitter added more than 15 million mDAUs “passing a quarter of a billion” at the end of the second quarter, when it stopped reporting financial information as a public company.
At the time, Twitter reported that it had 237.8 million mDAUs and annual growth of 16.6 percent.
General Mills, which makes Cheerios, Pillsbury and Häagen-Dazs, announced last week that it was pausing ads on the website
Oreo maker Mondelez International has also reportedly paused Twitter ad spending
The FAQ also sought to reassure advertisers about content moderation and Musk’s leadership.
It was shared by Alex Josephson, a 10-year company veteran who is now vice president of Twitter Next, a team that has helped brands create campaigns.
The memo notes, according to the Verge, that “levels of hate speech remain within historical norms, representing 0.25 percent to 0.45 percent of tweets per day among hundreds of millions.”
It also emphasizes that Musk will be subject to the same rules and content moderation as all other Twitter users, and reiterates Musk’s claims that Twitter will not change its content moderation policies until it forms and convenes a “content moderation council with widely divergent views.” ‘
And it notes that the planned renewal of Twitter Blue “will not affect terminated verified accounts at this time” and that “major brand advertisers who are already verified will now have an ‘Official’ label under their name upon Twitter Blue’s relaunch this week.”
Twitter launched its new Twitter Blue subscription over the weekend, only to later delay the launch until after the midterm elections
Twitter rolled out the new subscription plan over the weekend, only to later delay the launch until after the midterm elections.
As part of the renewal, the company — largely through Musk’s personal account — said it will roll out new features, such as reduced ads, the ability to post longer videos and a feature that allows users to receive priority ranking in replies, mentions and searches.
But the proposal has been met with much skepticism among Twitter employees and users.
The existing version of Twitter Blue only had a little more than 10,000 subscribers, according to Platformer, and the new version will be 37.5 percent more expensive, requiring verified account holders to pay $8 per month to keep their blue tick.
Employees had reportedly tried to sell Musk and Sacks on the idea of only asking corporate accounts to pay for the extras, as many use Twitter to reach a larger audience.
And, as some employees pointed out, the new feature that would cut ad load times in the Twitter app in half would also cost the company revenue, with some estimates showing that Twitter will lose about $6 in ad revenue per US user under the scheme.
But, Platformer reports, those ideas were dismissed in favor of offering large-scale verification — though it’s still unclear how many people or businesses would sign up for the new experience.
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