Musk’s Twitter announces more expensive subscription for ad-free service
- Announcement comes as the social network has faced major economic uncertainty since its takeover by Musk in October
- The service costs US$11 a month in the US and is available on Apple’s IOS and Google’s Android mobile operating systems
Twitter boss Elon Musk announced in a series of tweets on Saturday that the company’s subscription service would show less advertising to users, including an ad-free tier.
The announcement comes as the social network has faced major economic uncertainty since its takeover by Musk in October.
“Ads are too frequent on Twitter and too big. Taking steps to address both in coming weeks,” Musk posted to his Twitter account Saturday.
And for those who choose it, “there will be a higher priced subscription that allows zero ads,” Musk added.
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That would be a radical change in business model from Twitter, which has so far relied on targeted advertising to generate revenue, before launching a paid subscription service in mid-December.
But advertising has been a question mark for Twitter lately, after Musk fired about half of the company’s 7,500-strong workforce late last year. The move sparked concern that the company was insufficiently staffed to carry out content moderation and spooking governments and advertisers.