Elon Musk May Reportedly Charge for Some Twitter Features

Elon Musk is reportedly considering charging one of Twitter’s most basic features. Earlier this month, Elon Musk made the move to purchase Twitter. Although it isn’t a done deal quite yet, Musk has ideas for how he would use the company. The Tesla CEO has been outspoken about wanting to create a platform that allows more ways for “free speech”, essentially meaning he would loosen restrictions on the kinds of content one can post on the social media site. Beyond that, there are still a lot of questions about what his long-term plans for Twitter are, but a new report may give some idea about it.

According to Reuters, Musk told banks while trying to secure money for the deal that he is considering plans to charge users to quote tweet verified users and embed tweets (as is usually done within articles). Of course, people could just screenshot these tweets, making this redundant. Musk is also reportedly planning to replace Twitter CEO Parag Agrawal with an unnamed person if the purchase goes through where he could also make changes to Twitter’s subscription service, Twitter Blue. Since Musk doesn’t have any power at the company yet, nothing is final and it shouldn’t be taken as an absolute certainty. 

With that said, many have raised concerns over how Musk could change the platform. By monetizing some of the apps most basic features, it could set a bad precedent. Although the report states this would only apply when users are quoting verified users, it does raise the question of why. It seems like a strange thing to monetize, especially with such an easy workaround, but it’s likely we’ll find out more about his plans if and when Musk takes full control of Twitter. Musk has already joked about wanting to purchase other companies like Coca-Cola following his Twitter acquisition, but has made no official offers for anything else at the moment.

What do you think of Elon Musk taking over Twitter? Let me know in the comments below or hit me up on Twitter @Cade_Onder.