Elon Musk suggests charging some Twitter users, as platform trials non-public tweets for smaller ‘circles’
- Elon Musk said a ‘slight’ fee could be imposed for commercial and government users to grow the platform’s revenue which lags behind other social media networks
- Twitter’s new Circle feature allows you to have semi-private conversations with a smaller group of people. Up to 150 users can be added to one Circle
Elon Musk said on Tuesday Twitter Inc might charge a “slight” fee for commercial and government users, part of the billionaire entrepreneur’s push to grow revenue which has lagged behind larger rivals like Meta Platforms Inc’s Facebook.
“Twitter will always be free for casual users, but maybe a slight cost for commercial/government users,” Musk said in a tweet. “Some revenue is better than none!” he added in another tweet.
Twitter declined to comment when contacted by Reuters.
Last week, Reuters reported that Musk told banks he would develop new ways to monetise tweets and crack down on executive pay to slash costs at the social media platform company.
Musk also told the banks he planned to develop features to grow business revenue, including new ways to make money out of tweets that contain important information or go viral, sources told Reuters.
At the annual Met Gala in New York on Monday, Musk said the reach of Twitter was currently only “niche,” and he would want a much bigger percentage of the country to be on it.
Musk, also the chief executive officer of top electric vehicle maker Tesla Inc, has been suggesting a raft of changes to Twitter since last month.
In tweets which were subsequently deleted, Musk suggested changes to Twitter Blue premium subscription service, including slashing its price, banning advertising and giving an option to pay in the cryptocurrency dogecoin.
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After inking the deal to buy Twitter for US$44 billion last week, Musk said he wanted to enhance the platform with new features, make the algorithms open source to increase trust, defeat spam bots, and authenticate all humans.
Meanwhile, Twitter is testing a new feature that undermines the most basic principle of its platform, namely that all tweets are public.
Now, for the first time, non-public tweets can be shared using a new trial feature allowing users to make tweets visible only to select people.
“Some tweets are for everyone and others are just for people you’ve picked,” Twitter said on Tuesday, announcing the new feature, called Circle.
Twitter says its new Circle feature allows you to have semi-private conversations on Twitter and build closer connections with a smaller group of people. Up to 150 users can be added to one Circle.
Until now, all tweets have been public and could be seen by all users. The only exceptions to this so far were direct messages between two users who follow each other and the possibility of making all tweets from an account visible only to those approved by the owner.
Tweets published in a circle can neither be retweeted nor shared, Twitter says. The feature is initially available to a small group of users worldwide.
