SOCIAL
How Will Twitter Make Money Under Elon Musk? A Look at the Currently Proposed Options

So after week two of the Elon Musk Twitter drama, we’re left in a state of limbo, as we await the final approvals for the deal, which will eventually make Musk the head honcho at a private Twitter, which may or may not run ads anymore, may or may not allow all types of racist, homophobic and abusive speech, and may or may not be able to, one day, actually make money, despite these changes.
And we have little to go on right now as to how it will impact the company, and the platform as we know it. What we do know is that Twitter employees are increasingly nervous about their jobs, and the business that they may end up working for under Musk, while we’ve also had some slight hints as to how Musk plans to change the app.
To be clear, Twitter is not a charity, and after spending $44 billion on the app, Elon Musk will be looking for ways to maximize Twitter’s revenue intake, and recoup at least some of that cost. In a recent interview, Musk said that doesn’t care about the economics of the deal at all, and that his driving mission is to run “a public platform that is maximally trusted and broadly inclusive”.
But with huge debt, and accumulating interest, Musk has to make money too, and the bull case for the acquisition is that Musk, being the visionary that he is, sees something that others don’t, and can clear a pathway to optimal success for the platform – even though most market analysts see no viable pathway to turning any significant profit from the app.
So how will Musk do it?
Here are the areas that Musk is reportedly looking at right now – and to be clear, Musk has come up with these proposals without internal knowledge of the company and its current make up.
- Increasing subscriptions – Musk is reportedly looking to build Twitter Blue into a registration layer, of sorts, with users paying a monthly fee to get a verification tick that confirms that they’re an actual, real person. That could better enable Twitter to tackle bots (as it would make running bot farms cost prohibitive), while it would also ensure a level of transparency in the app, because you would know, based on these new forms of authentication tags, that you’re interacting with a real person, who’s registered their contact and payment details in the app. The economics could be difficult – if Musk were to charge $1 per month for this, that would bring in $229m per month/$2.7b per annum, if the current number of active users stick around, and aren’t all bots. You’d have to assume that quite a few won’t end up paying, which brings this down a lot, and would reduce Twitter’s revenue intake significantly, if this were the only way Twitter could make money in future. For reference, Twitter made $5.08b in revenue in 2021.
- Taking Twitter private – Of course, some of that revenue pressure is lessened if Twitter goes private, as it would no longer be beholden to shareholders who expect to see revenue rise by a defined, acceptable amount. Musk’s view is that Twitter needs to go private to ensure that it can make decisions free from the pressure of outside forces, enabling it to truly become a platform of free speech. The problem with that, of course, is that advertisers will be less comfortable placing ads alongside potentially offensive content – but that then leads into the next stage of Musk’s grand Twitter plan.
- No more ads – This would obviously be the biggest impact from a social media marketing perspective – Musk has said that Twitter should no longer run ads at all to remain truly independent. That then also means that Twitter would need to rely on alternate sources of income, and with ads making up 98% of the company’s revenue, that’s a big hole to fill. Part of Musk’s thinking here may also be that Twitter can cut costs by also removing all of the staff that work on its ad elements, which would be a major cost saving – but even so, if Musk wants to get close to making Twitter profitable, when factoring in its operating expenses versus income, it’ll be a big shortfall to make up. It’s difficult to see how this would be possible, but maybe, Musk knows something that we don’t.
- Charging for tweet embeds – This seems like a bit more of a stretch, but Musk has also reportedly floated the idea of charging websites for embeds of tweets from verified users, with the money potentially going back to the users themselves. That would align with Musk’s push to get more high profile users tweeting more often – maybe, if they can make a few bucks from tweeting, that could act as a motivator to get them sharing more in the app, which could spark more engagement with their fans, and generate more in-app activity overall. Of course, the counter is that people could just screenshot tweets instead, though there are ways that Musk could make tweets copyright protected, which would be even easier if he were to take this next step.
- Make Twitter ‘Pay to play’ for users – This is a more radical move – and to be clear, Musk himself has not proposed this idea, as such, just yet. But aligning with the concept of charging users for a verified user tick (different to the current blue tick for high profile users), Musk could look to make all users pay, or they simply wouldn’t be able to use the app. Your first instinct to this is that no one will pay, right? People can just use Facebook or Instagram or Snapchat instead – so why would anyone pay to simply log on and read tweets? I thought that too, but upon further reflection, I do think that Twitter is a critical platform for many journalists, political and other media types that use tweets to stay up with the latest news. That’s why Twitter is so influential, despite having only a tenth of the active users that Facebook does – while its audience may be smaller, the people that do use Twitter are generally among the most active in their respective industries, and following the latest tweets enables them to lead trends, re-distribute the latest news to their audiences off-platform, remain in-the-know, etc. As such, I suspect that many of them would pay, and if Musk were to lock tweets down, that would mean that they’re no longer publicly accessible, making it much easier to implement charges for tweet embeds, as well as any other re-use of on-platform content.
- Cost-cutting – The other key area that Musk is exploring is cost-cutting, which again aligns with the above points, in that Twitter could cut costs significantly if it no longer ran ads. Twitter spent $1.7b last year on sales and marketing and general admin costs, while it also spent an additional $1.2b on research and development, and $2b on infrastructure. Without ads, those costs could come down a lot, and if Musk can reduce those outgoings in a big way, he could, theoretically, make enough money from his subscription proposals to generate positive cash flow for the app over time, while also enabling it to remain independent, and therefore better able to run with a ‘free speech’ approach.
Again, Musk has made these pitches in meetings to secure funding for his Twitter bid, and without internal insight into how the company is currently run, and what’s truly possible within the current structure, or within any future re-shaping of the business.
But it does seem like this is where Musk is likely to make his big changes, especially given that Twitter doesn’t have a lot of other paths to take, based on historical performance.
But there may be additional opportunities that we’re not seeing, and the general view is that Twitter has underperformed over time, with even current CEO Parag Agrawal noting in an all-hands meeting this week that:
“I could have done things differently. I think about this a lot. I feel accountable for my actions I’ve taken over the last decade. I’ve only been in this job for four months, but I’ve been at the company for a decade. And yes, we could have done better. Should have done better.”
Maybe, now is the time that Twitter can make those big changes, with more freedom as an independent company – and again, many have pointed to Musk’s genius in other fields, so maybe he does indeed see something that others don’t here.
What we know for sure is that this will be the most public demonstration of that genius that Musk has ever had, and if he truly is the visionary that many believe, he’ll definitely have a chance to prove it.
SOCIAL
With outburst, Musk puts X’s survival in the balance

Even after Elon Musk gutted the staff by two-thirds, X, formerly Twitter, still has around 2,000 employees, and incurs substantial fixed costs like data servers and real estate
– Copyright POOL/AFP/File Leon Neal
Thomas URBAIN
Elon Musk’s verbal assault on advertisers who have shunned X (formerly Twitter) threatens to sink the social network further, with the tycoon warning of the platform’s demise, just one year after taking control.
“If somebody’s gonna try to blackmail me with advertising, go fuck yourself,” a visibly furious Musk told an interviewer in New York in front of an audience of the US business elite this week.
Musk was lashing out at the advertisers who had abandoned his platform after Media Matters, a left-wing media watchdog group, warned big companies that their ads were running aside posts by neo-Nazis.
Walmart on Friday was the latest to join the exodus, following the footsteps of IBM, Disney, Paramount, NBCUniversal, Lionsgate and others.
The latest controversy broke earlier this month when Musk declared a tweet exposing an anti-Semitic conspiracy theory as the “absolute truth.”
Musk apologized for his tweet, even taking a trip to Israel to meet with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, but on Wednesday he targeted his anger squarely at advertisers.
“It doesn’t take a social media expert to know that publicly and personally attacking the people in companies that pay X’s bills is not going to be good for business,” said analyst Jasmine Enberg of Insider Intelligence.
“Most advertiser boycotts on social media companies, including X, have been short lived. There’s a potential for this one to be longer,” she added.
Musk said the survival of X could be at stake.
“What this advertising boycott is going to do is kill the company,” Musk said.
“Everybody will know” that advertisers were those responsible, he angrily added.
– Bankruptcy looms? –
Even before the latest bust up, Insider Intelligence was forecasting a 54-percent contraction in ad sales, to $1.9 billion this year.
“The advertising exodus at X could accelerate with Musk not playing nice in the sandbox,” said Dan Ives of Wedbush Securities.
According to data provided to AFP by market data analysis company SensorTower, as many as half of the social network’s top 100 US advertisers in October 2022 have already stopped spending altogether.
But by dropping X, “you are opening yourself up for competitors to step into your territory,” warned Kellis Landrum, co-founder of digital marketing agency True North Social.
Advertisers may also choose to stay for lack of an equivalent alternative.
Meta’s new Threads platform and other upstarts have yet to prove worthy adversaries for the time being, Landrum argued.
Analyst Enberg insisted that “X is not an essential platform for many advertisers, so withdrawing temporarily tends to be a pretty painless decision.”
Privately held, X does not release official figures, but all estimates point to a significant drop in the number of users.
SensorTower puts the annual fall at 45 percent for monthly users at the start of the fourth quarter, compared with the same period last year.
Added to this is the disengagement of dozens of highly followed accounts, including major brands such as Coca-Cola, PepsiCo, JPMorgan Bank and Starbucks as well as many celebrities and media personalities that have stopped or reduced usage.
The corporate big names haven’t posted any content for weeks, when they used to be an everyday presence.
None of the dozen or so companies contacted by AFP responded to requests for comments.
In normal conditions, Twitter or X “was always much larger than its ad dollars,” said Enberg.
It was “an important place for brands and companies to connect with consumers and customers,” she said.
Even after Musk gutted the staff by two-thirds, X still has around 2,000 employees, and incurs substantial fixed costs like data servers and real estate.
Another threat is the colossal debt contracted by Musk for his acquisition, but now carried by X, which must meet a payment of over a billion dollars each year.
In his tense interview on Wednesday, Musk hinted that he would not come to the rescue if the coffers run dry, even if he has ample means to do so.
“If the company fails… it will fail because of an advertiser boycott and that will bankrupt the company,” Musk said.
SOCIAL
Walmart says it has stopped advertising on Elon Musk’s X platform

Walmart said Friday that it is scaling back its advertising on X, the social media company formerly known as Twitter, because “we’ve found some other platforms better for reaching our customers.”
Walmart’s decision has been in the works for a while, according to a person familiar with the move. Yet it comes as X faces an advertiser exodus following billionaire owner Elon Musk’s support for an antisemitic post on the platform.
The retailer spends about $2.7 billion on advertising each year, according to MarketingDive. In an email to CBS MoneyWatch, X’s head of operations, Joe Benarroch, said Walmart still has a large presence on X. He added that the company stopped advertising on X in October, “so this is not a recent pausing.”
“Walmart has a wonderful community of more than a million people on X, and with a half a billion people on X, every year the platform experiences 15 billion impressions about the holidays alone with more than 50% of X users doing most or all of their shopping online,” Benarroch said.
Musk struck a defiant pose earlier this week at the New York Times’ Dealbook Summit, where he cursed out advertisers that had distanced themselves from X, telling them to “go f— yourself.” He also complained that companies are trying to “blackmail me with advertising” by cutting off their spending with the platform, and cautioned that the loss of big advertisers could “kill” X.
“And the whole world will know that those advertisers killed the company,” Musk added.
Dozens of advertisers — including players such as Apple, Coca Cola and Disney — have bailed on X since Musk tweeted that a post on the platform that claimed Jews fomented hatred against White people, echoing antisemitic stereotypes, was “the actual truth.”
Advertisers generally shy away from placing their brands and marketing messages next to controversial material, for fear that their image with consumers could get tarnished by incendiary content.
The loss of major advertisers could deprive X of up to $75 million in revenue, according to a New York Times report.
Musk said Wednesday his support of the antisemitic post was “one of the most foolish” he’d ever posted on X.
“I am quite sorry,” he said, adding “I should in retrospect not have replied to that particular post.”
SOCIAL
US Judge Blocks Montana’s Effort to Ban TikTok

TikTok has won another reprieve in the U.S., with a district judge blocking Montana’s effort to ban the app for all users in the state.
Back in May, Montana Governor Greg Gianforte signed legislation to ban TikTok outright from operating in the state, in order to protect residents from alleged intelligence gathering by China. There’s no definitive evidence that TikTok is, or has participated in such, but Gianforte opted to move to a full ban, going further than the government device bans issued in other regions.
As explained by Gianforte at the time:
“The Chinese Communist Party using TikTok to spy on Americans, violate their privacy, and collect their personal, private, and sensitive information is well-documented. Today, Montana takes the most decisive action of any state to protect Montanans’ private data and sensitive personal information from being harvested by the Chinese Communist Party.”
In response, a collection of TikTok users challenged the proposed ban, arguing that it violated their first amendment rights, which led to this latest court challenge, and District Court Judge Donald Molloy’s decision to stop Montana’s ban effort.
Montana’s TikTok ban had been set to go into effect on Jan. 1, 2024.
In issuing a preliminary injunction to stop Montana from imposing a full ban on the app, Molloy said that Montana’s legislation does indeed violate the Constitution and “oversteps state power.”
Molloy’s judgment is primarily centered on the fact that Montana has essentially sought to exercise foreign policy authority in enacting a TikTok ban, which is only enforceable by federal authorities. Molloy also noted that there was a “pervasive undertone of anti-Chinese sentiment” within Montana’s proposed legislation.
TikTok has welcomed the ruling, issuing a brief statement in response:
We are pleased the judge rejected this unconstitutional law and hundreds of thousands of Montanans can continue to express themselves, earn a living, and find community on TikTok.
— TikTok Policy (@TikTokPolicy) December 1, 2023
Montana attorney general, meanwhile, has said that it’s considering next steps to advance its proposed TikTok ban.
The news is a win for TikTok, though the Biden Administration is still weighing a full TikTok ban in the U.S., which may still happen, even though the process has been delayed by legal and legislative challenges.
As I’ve noted previously, my sense here would be that TikTok won’t be banned in the U.S. unless there’s a significant shift in U.S.-China relations, and that relationship is always somewhat tense, and volatile to a degree.
If the U.S. government has new reason to be concerned, it may well move to ban the app. But doing so would be a significant step, and would prompt further response from the C.C.P.
Which is why I suspect that the U.S. government won’t act, unless it feels that it has to. And right now, there’s no clear impetus to implement a ban, and stop a Chinese-owned company from operating in the region, purely because of its origin.
Which is the real crux of the issue here. A TikTok ban is not just banning a social media company, it’s blocking cross-border commerce, because the company is owned by China, which will remain the logic unless clear evidence arises that TikTok has been used as a vector for gathering information on U.S. citizens.
Banning a Chinese-owned app because it is Chinese-owned is a statement, beyond concerns about a social app, and the U.S. is right to tread carefully in considering how such a move might impact other industries.
So right now, TikTok is not going to be banned, in Montana, or anywhere else in the U.S. But that could still change, very quickly.
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