Tech billionaire Elon Musk said all users eventually will have to pay to use his embattled platform X.
In a web conversation with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Monday, Mr. Musk said that X would be moving to a “small monthly payment” system for use of the platform. He told the prime minister that the decision was made to combat bots.
“It’s the only way I can think of to combat vast armies of bots. Because a bot costs a fraction of a penny—call it a tenth of a penny—but even if it has to pay…a few dollars or something, the effective cost of bots is very high,” he said.
Mr. Musk did not elaborate on the new subscription plan, such as the rollout date and price.
Last year, after Mr. Musk took control of what was then known as Twitter, he floated the idea of putting all of Twitter behind a paywall. That plan changed significantly and became Twitter Blue, now X Premium.
Users can pay $8 a month, or $84 a year, for X Premium which gives them access to features including longer posts, the ability to edit posts and prioritized rankings in replies.
The change has not exactly been popular. One estimate shows that only 827,000 of Twitter’s over 500 million users are subscribed to X Premium.
The move could be another plan to pull back revenue for the site after advertisers left in droves last year. While Mr. Musk has maintained that most advertisers have returned, other reports have shown that X has failed to recoup much of what was lost.
• Vaughn Cockayne can be reached at vcockayne@washingtontimes.com.
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