Elon Musk said Twitter could charge a “light” fee for commercial and government users, the latest hint of the changes the world’s richest man could make after completing the takeover of the social media platform.
“Twitter will always be free for ordinary users, but maybe a light price for commercial / government users,” Musk tweeted. In another tweet, he added: “Some revenue is better than none!”
Tesla’s chief executive agrees to buy Twitter for $ 44 billion (£ 35.2 billion) in a deal funded by $ 21 billion from his own money, another $ 12.5 billion borrowed in exchange for his stake in Tesla and the rest are made from loans from banks.
The estimated $ 1 billion in financing interest costs have sparked speculation that Musk will impose fees on the platform and cut costs to make the deal financially viable.
In a series of tweets about his ambitions for the platform in recent weeks, Musk suggested a number of changes to Twitter, including making algorithms that control what users see on the platform “open source” – or transparent to developers and users. He also promised to defeat spam bots and “authenticate” all people.
Last week, it was reported that Musk had told banks that he would develop new ways to generate revenue from tweets and disrupt executive pay to cut costs on the social media platform.
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Musk also told banks that he plans to develop features to increase business revenue, including new ways to make money from tweets that contain important information or go viral, sources told Reuters.
At Monday’s annual Met Gala in New York, Musk said Twitter’s reach was just a “niche” and he would like a much larger percentage of the American population to be in it. Twitter has 229 million daily users worldwide.
In tweets that were later deleted, Musk suggested changes to the platform’s premium subscription service, Twitter Blue, including lowering its price, banning advertising and giving the option to pay in the cryptocurrency dogecoin.
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