Elon Musk suggests X will charge “small monthly fee” for all users

Elon Musk is looking to charge users of X (formerly Twitter) a monthly subscription fee to combat bots and generate revenue.

He made this known during a live-streamed event on X with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. 

During the live conversation, Netanyahu brought up the challenge of preventing large armies of bots that amplify hate speech.

Musk replied: “The single most important reason we’re moving to having a small monthly payment for use of the X system is it’s the only way I can think of to combat vast armies of bots.”

Musk said adding a subscription would make it much more difficult for bots to create accounts, because each bot would need to register a new credit card.

He added that the company plans to come out with “a lower tier pricing,” than what it currently charges for its X Premium subscribers, which is around $8 monthly.

This comes as the company struggles to regain trust with advertisers.

Musk said earlier this month that Twitter’s U.S. ad revenue was down by 60 percent and he blamed this on civil rights and consumers groups putting pressure on big brands.