Elon Musk Could Make Twitter Paid for Government and Commercial Users, Will Keep it Free for Others

Elon Musk’s Twitter acquisition sent waves across the tech and all over the world as well. The decision to purchase a public social media platform was quite surprising from the Tesla and SpaceX CEO who is famous for his antics on the same platform.

He initially bought 9.2% of the social media platform and got an invitation from CEO Parag Agrawal to join the Twitter board as well. However, Elon had other plans and chose to bid for control over the entire company instead.

Musk has mentioned several times that he is a promoter of free speech and how he plans to implement that once he takes over. Several people have also speculated that he could also unban Donald Trump’s account once he assumes control. Now, there is a new twist in the tale as the platform could become a paid service to a specific group of people and organizations.

In his latest tweet, he mentions how offering services for free led to the downfall of the Freemasons. Following up to that, he said “Twitter will always be free for casual users, but maybe a slight cost for commercial/government users”.

Twitter will always be free for casual users, but maybe a slight cost for commercial/government users

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) May 3, 2022

If this actually happens, it would be a landmark decision considering all other social media platforms currently allow any users or organizations to have their own accounts/ pages free of cost. Twitter is the one place where organizations, Government officials and offices have been making important announcements and expressing their opinions. Monetizing that could have some unprecedented effects which will only come to light once this is implemented.

Apart from making it a free-speech platform, Musk has also declared war on Twitter bots where he wants to defeat them once and for all or ‘die trying’.

And authenticate all real humans

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) April 21, 2022

He has mentioned that Twitter as a platform needs to be politically netural for it to deserve public trust. In addition to this, he has also mentioned how he is seemingly fine with people quitting Twitter by saying it is a ‘free country’.

There a lot of things that will emerge in the coming days which could have far reaching effects on the platform and its users as well. Elon is also rumoured to appoint a new CEO for Twitter once he takes over, but there is no confirmation on that front.