Elon Musk says Twitter, now X, is moving to small monthly subscription and has 550 million users

Elon Musk mentioned his plans for Twitter, now known as X, on Monday throughout a livestreamed dialog with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Among different issues, Musk stated the social community is “moving to having a small monthly cost to be used of the X system” so as to fight “huge armies of bots. Musk didn’t say how a lot a brand new plan would value users of the social community, or what different options would or wouldn’t be included with cost on the lowest tier.

During the livestream, Musk additionally divulged some new metrics from X, claiming it now has 550 million “monthly users,” who generate 100 million to 200 million posts per day there.

Musk didn’t disclose how most of the firm’s monthly users are genuine, versus bots. He additionally didn’t make an apples-to-apples comparability to metrics beforehand utilized by Twitter. In May 2022, earlier than Musk’s takeover, Twitter reported that it had “common monetizable day by day lively utilization” of 229 million.

The dialogue with Netanyahu on Monday was meant to concentrate on theoretical dangers of synthetic intelligence know-how, and how AI ought to doubtlessly be regulated. However, Musk additionally used it to dispute the notion that his social community is filled with hate speech and antisemitism.

The assembly adopted widespread criticism of Musk by civil rights teams within the West over his amplification of bigotry on his social community, together with antisemitic accounts, content material and conspiracies.

In latest weeks, Musk has threatened to sue the Anti Defamation League, a Jewish-led group, alleging that they tried to “kill” his social community. Musk has blamed the ADL for a 60% drop in income at X (Twitter), reasonably than his personal enterprise selections there, and stated he had “no selection” however to file a defamation lawsuit towards the group.

Musk and X Corp. haven’t but filed any recognized lawsuit towards the ADL, and didn’t instantly reply to a request for remark.

Before assembly with Netanyahu, Musk additionally accused George Soros’s basis of wanting to “destroy” western civilization. The Hungarian-American Jewish philanthropist is the topic of a number of antisemitic conspiracy theories and founding father of Open Society Foundations, which donates to a wide range of civil society teams.

On Twitter, Musk has repeatedly disparaged trans folks, federal regulators, politicians, journalists, whistleblowers, critics of his corporations, and quick sellers. Despite that historical past, Musk instructed Netanyahu on Monday, “I’m form of towards attacking any group, you realize. Doesn’t matter who it is.” In order to turn into “a spacefaring civilization.” He added, “We cannot do this if there’s a number of infighting and, you realize, hatred and negativity.”

After buying Twitter for round $44 billion in late October 2022, Musk applied huge employees cuts, and sweeping adjustments to the platform. He continues to run the corporate as its largest shareholder, chief technical officer and govt chairman, and additionally is the CEO of automaker Tesla and house firm SpaceX.

Among different issues, he gave “amnesty” to beforehand suspended accounts – a transfer that on-line security and hate speech consultants strongly criticized. Under his administration, Twitter (X) restored the account of former President Donald Trump, who was beforehand banned by Twitter for encouraging the Jan. 6, 2021, capitol revolt. Musk’s Twitter additionally restored the private accounts of far-right Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene and neo-Nazi web site founder Andrew Anglin. 

Musk additionally eradicated Twitter’s previous “bluecheck” system of verification, which helped users to establish genuine accounts belonging to public figures together with celebrities, elected officers, scientists, authors, leaders in enterprise and training, working journalists and others.

Under the social community’s present system, users who pay can present a blue, subscriber badge subsequent to their names. Those who pay see their posts prioritized in different users’ feeds. Those who don’t pay to use the social community are relegated to decrease ranges of amplification for his or her posts, or may even see decrease engagement on the platform. On Monday, Musk repeated his perception that turning users into paid subscribers would make it cumbersome and unaffordable to deploy bots on the platform.

Twitter is attempting to get hold of licenses to turn into a cash transmitter throughout the U.S. presently. According to public information, it has already obtained permission to accomplish that in 8 states.