Elon Musk Suggests Putting X Behind a Paywall to Keep Bots Away

Elon Musk hinted yesterday that X, the platform formerly known as Twitter, may soon go behind a paywall. Musk shared this idea yesterday In a livestreamed conversation with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu (via CNBC), adding that it would be a way to get rid of the “vast armies of bots” on the platform.

The X owner said that the company was “moving to having a small monthly payment for use of the X system” without sharing more details about what the new subscription would cost. X already offers a premium subscription named X Premium (previously Twitter Blue), which is priced at $8/month or $84/year.

X Premium provides access to a blue verified badge, the ability to publish longer posts, and subscribers also see approximately 50% fewer ads on the web and mobile. What’s more controversial about X Premium is that subscribers get prioritized rankings in conversations, and people can also earn money from their tweets by joining the platform’s new ad revenue sharing program.

While extra features for power users does sound good on paper, X has also made the regular experience worse for people who don’t pay for X Premium and post links to other websites. A recent report from Semafor pointed out that engagement on posts with links to the New York Times had “dropped dramatically,” for reasons X hasn’t clarified.

Even though a credible alternative to X/Twitter has yet to emerge, putting the entire platform behind a paywall doesn’t seem like the best idea to make it thrive. Of course, it’s now best to take everything Musk says with a big grain of salt these days. The X owner also said yesterday that the platform now had 550 million monthly users, though it’s not clear if this number also takes bots into account.