X owner Elon Musk has confirmed that the social media platform will begin offering Premium and Premium+ features to users above a certain verified follower threshold. The X Premium subscription gives users access to a number of features such as reduced ads, access to apply for revenue sharing and more. Meanwhile, the X Premium+ subscription comes with some additional benefits such as no ads in the For You and Following timeline and reply prioritisation.
Sharing the information via a post on X (formerly Twitter), Musk wrote, “Going forward, all 𝕏 accounts with over 2500 verified subscriber followers will get Premium features for free and accounts with over 5000 will get Premium+ for free”
Amidst the growing rivalry with OpenAI, Elon Musk had confirmed on Wednesday that the Grok AI chatbot which was only accessible for X Premium+ users till now will now be accessible to all Premium users soon.
Why it is free?
Since his acquisition of Twitter/X in October 2022, Elon Musk has focused his efforts on getting users to pay a nominal subscription amount in order to bolster the social media giant’s revenue. To that end, one of the first steps Musk took was to end the legacy verified programme, which offered a free blue tick to notable figures such as celebrities, musicians, actors, government officials and more.
Instead, Musk offered all users access to the blue tick next to their X profile by paying for the company’s premium subscription. Late last year, Musk decided to add two new subscription tiers to X, with a basic plan starting at ₹244/month or ₹2590/year. Meanwhile, the X Premium+ subscription starts at ₹1,300 per month or ₹13,600 per year.
While X hasn’t made an official announcement as to why Elon Musk had a change of heart and decided to offer users a free X subscription, a big part of the answer could be the decline in advertising revenue and user numbers. A recent report by NBC News, citing data from Sensor Tower, stated that the X user base had fallen by 15% year-on-year by February 2024, and by 23% since Musk took over the social media giant.
