Elon Musk Says X To Have Two New Premium Tiers

Elon Musk continues to seek ways for X (aka Twitter) to make money, without having to rely on its traditional advertising revenue stream.

The owner of X tweeted that “two new tiers of X Premium subscriptions launching soon”, with a lower cost option coming “with all features, but no reduction in ads”, and the other more expensive version to offer an ad free experience.

It comes after Twitter earlier this week confirmed that it has begun charging new users in New Zealand and the Philippines a $1 annual fee, supposedly in an effort to combat bots – a favourite Elon Musk bugbear.

$1 fee

X revealed in a post on Tuesday that it was testing a new program called “Not a Bot”, in which new users in New Zealand and the Philippines are required to sign up for a $1 annual subscription in order to post and interact with other posts.

X indicated the test will apply only to new web accounts, and the fee will be waived if users sign up for it’s $3.99 per month premium subscription service.

New users in the testing region who opt out of premium and the annual subscription will only be able to read posts, watch videos and follow accounts – but not interact on the platform.
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The test will reportedly not affect existing users.

Musk had hinted at the move in September during an online broadcast live with Benjamin Netanyahu, in which the Israeli Prime Minister raised the issue of anti-Semitism on the platform.

New premium subscriptions

Now on Friday Elon Musk tweeted that Twitter will soon launch two new tiers of premium subscriptions.

In the post this week, Twitter has said that so far, subscription options have proven to be the main solution that works at scale.

That is perhaps because Musk’s actions since his takeover of the platform, has resulted in advertisers fleeing the platform, and in his own words in July, the platform has lost half its ad revenue.

Ad revenue made up the vast majority of Twitter’s total revenue before the Musk takeover, but Musk has blamed activists for pressuring advertisers and even threatened and issued lawsuits against them.

Twitter’s CEO Linda Yaccarino however has said recently that 1,500 brands had returned to the platform in the previous 12 weeks, and that 90 percent of the top 100 advertisers were back on X.

She added that X could turn a profit by early next year.

Earlier this month, Reuters reported (citing a source) that Yaccarino had met with X’s lenders, in which she had said the company would test three tiers of its subscription service based on the number of ads shown to the user.

In an effort to generate revenue, Musk started charging $8 per month for the blue check subscription service late last year, and offered large discounts to companies to advertise on the platform.