Elon Musk to charge all X users a monthly subscription

In a live conversation with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Elon Musk explored the possibility of imposing a monthly fee for all X platform users in order to address the issue of bots. Musk believes that charging a nominal fee could deter bots, as it would increase their operating costs. Musk previously put forth this idea last year.  

Currently, Twitter only charges users for its subscription service X Premium, which offers perks such as a verified account checkmark and costs $11 a month in the US for iPhones and £11 in the UK.  

“We’re moving to having a small monthly payment for use of the system,” Musk said. 

Saying that bot's cost “a fraction of a penny” to set up, Musk added that raising the cost of an account to “a few dollars or something” could put off operators of the software. He added: “Plus, every time a bot creator wanted to make another bot, they would need another new payment method.” 

Musk also said X had 550 million monthly users generating up to 200m posts a day. Previously, the platform had measured its user base by a different method, monetisable daily active users, which stood at 238 million before Musk bought the business in October 2022. 

Musk has raised the prospect of a paywall as the platform battles an entrenched decline in advertising, its main source of income. Musk has said an advertiser boycott, spurred by concerns over his leadership of the platform and its management of inappropriate or hateful content, has caused ad revenue to decline by 60%. 

Musk’s conversation with Netanyahu was billed as a discussion about technology and artificial intelligence but it quickly turned to free speech and antisemitism amid accusations that X was not doing enough to tackle racist speech on the platform. Netanyahu said he hoped Musk would find ways within the confines of the first amendment to clamp down on antisemitism and other forms of hatred on X.