Musk said Twitter will continue to be free for regular users.
”
Author | Qiao Yanwei
A few weeks after announcing the $44 billion acquisition of social media platform Twitter, Musk said businesses and governments would need to pay a small fee to use Twitter in the future, according to CNBC.
Musk, a billionaire in the tech industry and also CEO of Tesla and SpaceX, added in a post afterwards that Twitter will continue to be free for the average user.
It's unclear how much Musk wants to charge businesses and governments, and whether it'll be free for groups like nonprofits and journalists.
Foreign media contacted Twitter on the matter, and Twitter declined to respond.
In recent years, Twitter's revenue has lagged far behind other social media platforms such as Facebook, Instagram and YouTube.
Musk, who has 90.7 million Twitter followers, has previously said he wants to "make Twitter better than ever by enhancing the product with new features."
Twitter has previously launched trials of a paid subscription service called Twitter Blue in the United States, Canada, Australia and New Zealand to provide users with additional features.
The paid service costs $2.99 per month in the U.S. and allows users to undo tweets, bookmark tweets, and more. Musk said last month that he wants to lower the price of Twitter Blue and make adjustments and changes to the service, such as introducing an advertising ban.
Musk has also said that all direct messages on Twitter should be encrypted end-to-end, making it impossible for anyone to snoop or crack users' messages.
At the annual Met Gala on Monday, Musk said Twitter also needs to govern the robots, trolls and scams that appear on the platform.
"We don't want users' money or other things to be scammed."
Twitter is currently listed on the Nasdaq Stock Exchange in New York, but Musk wants to take it private.
However, according to a previous report in the Wall Street Journal, Musk told investors that he may choose to let Twitter return to the open markets within three years.
If the deal closes, the world's richest man, who has been harshly critical of Twitter, will gain actual control of it, though some sensitive Tesla-related posts have caused legal controversy.
While Musk said his main interest in Twitter comes from the company's censorship of free speech, Musk's critics fear the billionaire's control of the platform will lead to silence among their voices and others who disagree with Musk because he often prevents critics from accessing his personal accounts.
At last month's TED 2022 conference in Vancouver, Musk shared what he wants to see changes in Twitter in his hands.
"I think it's important to provide an inclusive arena for free speech." He said at the time, and acknowledged that Twitter needs to do some moderation of content to deal with certain calls for violence, as well as to ensure that platform services comply with the laws of the countries in which it operates.
He also said he generally prefers a "pause" over a permanent ban, which gives former U.S. President Donald Trump the possibility of rejoining a social platform under Musk's control: Twitter had previously barred Trump from tweeting before and after the U.S. Capitol riots on January 6 last year, citing "the risk of further incitement to violence."
END