X Tweaks its Ad Revenue Sharing Program

X, the platform formerly known as Twitter, is changing its ad revenue-sharing program to allow more creators to earn money from their posts. You currently need an X Premium (formerly Twitter Blue) to be eligible for the program, and now, subscribers only need to have at least 5 million impressions on their posts within the last 3 months to earn money. The previous threshold was 15 million impressions.

As you may have noticed, X/Twitter started displaying the number of impressions under every post a couple of months ago, and 5 million impressions over 3 months is still a pretty big number. In a separate post, Elon Musk clarified that “only views from verified handles count, as scammers will otherwise use bots to spam views to infinity.” The exec also emphasized that X Premium was “free for accounts that generate above 5 million views” as subscribers who reach this threshold should get their X Premium money back.

This essentially means that X Premium (fka Twitter Blue) is free for accounts that generate above 5M views.

Note, only views from verified handles count, as scammers will otherwise use bots to spam views to infinity. https://t.co/87MqqyUu2E

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) August 11, 2023

Many big social platforms such as YouTube, Twitch, or TikTok also have ad revenue-sharing programs in place. “This is part of our effort to help people earn a living directly on X,” the company said. However, this also encourages sensationalistic takes, and the news of Twitter sending big paychecks to far-right influencers on the platform has legitimately raised some eyebrows.

Speaking with The Washington Post under the condition of anonymity, a former Twitter executive also recently criticized the truthfulness of the eligibility requirements for X’s ad revenue sharing program. “The numbers are totally and completely bogus. It’s all completely made up. It really feels like they’re arbitrarily writing checks to people they like, which is not a sustainable creator strategy,” the former exec said.

A lot has happened at X/Twitter in recent weeks, and Linda Yaccarino, the company’s new CEO is currently helping Elon Musk to transform the platform into an “everything” app. “The rebrand represented really a liberation from Twitter,” Yaccarino said in an interview with CNBC yesterday. “It’s going to change how we congregate, how we entertain, how we transact all in one platform.”

Speaking of entertainment, Elon Musk is continuing to tease his upcoming fight with Meta CEO Zuckerberg. Even though the event still sounds like a joke that ran for too long, Musk is now saying that the fight will happen in an “epic location” in Italy, and it will be live-streamed on X and Meta. Musk also said that X Premium subscribers will get to see behind the scene footage and that all proceeds will go to veterans.