Elon Musk has hinted that Twitter may charge a “slight” fee for commercial and government users, the latest indication of the changes the world’s richest person may bring to the social media platform once he completes his takeover.
“Twitter will always be free for casual users, but there may be a small fee for commercial/government users,” Musk wrote in a tweet. “Some revenue is better than none!” he added in another tweet.
The Tesla CEO has agreed to buy Twitter for $44 billion (£35.2 billion) in a deal funded by $21 billion of his own money, a further $12.5 billion borrowed against his Tesla shareholding, and the remainder funded by bank loans.
The estimated $1 billion in interest costs associated with the funding have fueled speculation that Musk will levy fees on the platform and cut costs to make the transaction financially viable.
Musk has suggested a number of changes to Twitter in recent tweets referring to his ambitions for the platform, including making the algorithms that curate what users see on the platform “open source” – or transparent to developers and users. He has also promised to defeat spambots and “authenticate” himself.
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Last week, it was reported that Musk told banks that he planned to develop new ways to monetize tweets and cut executive pay to reduce costs at the social media platform.
According to Reuters, Musk also told the banks that he planned to develop features to increase business revenue, such as new ways to monetize tweets that contain important information or go viral.
Musk said at the annual Met Gala in New York on Monday that Twitter’s reach is “niche” and that he would like a much larger percentage of the American population to be on it. Twitter has 229 million daily users around the world.
Musk proposed changes to the platform’s premium subscription service, Twitter Blue, in tweets that were later deleted, including lowering the price, banning advertising, and allowing users to pay in the cryptocurrency dogecoin.
