Elon Musk Reportedly Contemplating Monetizing Twitter With Embedded and Quote Tweets

Elon Musk is reportedly considering monetizing Twitter by having users pay for viral tweets, and websites pay to embed or quote tweets from verified accounts.

April 29, 2022

Elon Musk photographed in Berlin — Image via Getty/Pool
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Elon Musk is reportedly looking to further monetize Twitter beyond its Twitter Blue subscription service.

Reuters reports that sources say the billionaire might try to make money from tweets and slash executives’ salaries. He reportedly notified the banks—which helped him purchase Twitter for $44 billion on Monday—about his tentative plans earlier this month. To pay for the purchase, he secured $13 billion in loans and another $12.5 billion margin loan fixed to his Tesla stock; he recently sold $8.5 billion of his Tesla shares. He paid for the balance in cash.

In addition to potentially cutting salaries—which he’s said could amount to $3 million in savings—he’s considering monetizing tweets “that contain important information or go viral,” the report writes. He’s also contemplating having websites pay a fee to quote or embed tweets from verified accounts, but will keep “moderation policies on the social media platform…as free as possible.”

He might also alter the Twitter Blue program, by decreasing the pricing, which currently costs $2.99 a month; prohibiting ads, and allowing users to pay in Dogecoin.

Musk issued a statement upon his purchase of Twitter on Monday.

“Free speech is the bedrock of a functioning democracy, and Twitter is the digital town square where matters vital to the future of humanity are debated,” he said. “I also want to make Twitter better than ever by enhancing the product with new features, making the algorithms open source to increase trust, defeating the spam bots, and authenticating all humans. Twitter has tremendous potential—I look forward to working with the company and the community of users to unlock it.”