Billionaire Elon Musk announced Friday that Twitter is planning to start sharing advertising revenue with verified creators on the platform for the ads that appear in replies below the content they post.
"In a few weeks, X/Twitter will start paying creators for ads served in their replies," Musk tweeted. He added that the first block payment will total around $5 million and that "the creator must be verified and only ads served to verified users count."
In March, Musk said the platform generates about 5 or 6 cents per hour in ad revenue from users on the platform and expressed his belief that could be increased to 15 cents or more with advertising that is more relevant and timely for users on the platform.
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Since Musk and a group of investors he led acquired Twitter for $44 billion last year and took the company private, he has emphasized the need to increase revenue through a variety of new initiatives, such as the paid subscription verification service known as Twitter Blue.
The social media company also rolled out a product that lets creators verified through the Twitter Blue service offer paid subscriptions to give exclusive content to their subscribers. Creators can charge subscribers $2.99, $4.99 or $9.99 monthly to access their content.
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Twitter's new initiatives are aimed at solving a longstanding revenue generation challenge the platform has faced. At the time the investor group took over the company, Twitter was losing about $4 million per day, according to Musk. That precipitated a wave of layoffs that hit about half of the company’s 7,500-person workforce in a move aimed at staving off bankruptcy.
Musk said in March that the moves have given Twitter "a shot at being cash flow positive" in the second quarter of 2023, though he cautioned at the time that he didn’t want to "count chickens before they hatch."
Late last year, Musk announced his intention to step down as Twitter CEO following the appointment of his successor.
Linda Yaccarino – a former NBCUniversal advertising executive whose hiring as Twitter CEO was first made public in mid-May – announced last Monday that she had begun serving in the role and tweeted that her first day was "in the books!" She also hinted at new announcements to come and told followers to "stay tuned."
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Following Yaccarino’s move into the CEO role at Twitter, Musk has said he intends to remain in a chief technology officer role with the company to help guide its tech initiatives and product design.
Reuters contributed to this report.
