Verified content creators on Twitter to be paid for ads in replies, says Elon Musk

Twitter will soon begin paying the verified content creators on its platform for the advertisements in their replies, Elon Musk announced on Saturday.

The tech billionaire revealed that the first payment block will be of around $5 million.

“In a few weeks, X/Twitter will start paying creators for ads served in their replies. First block payment totals $5M. Note, the creator must be verified and only ads served to verified users count,” Musk tweeted.

In a few weeks, X/Twitter will start paying creators for ads served in their replies. First block payment totals $5M.

Note, the creator must be verified and only ads served to verified users count.

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) June 9, 2023

Musk’s tweet has gone viral with over 14 million views in just a few hours.

Elon Musk is taking a proactive approach to reverse a plunge in ad revenue of Twitter. It seems that this decision is in line with that approach.

Plunging Ad Revenue for Twitter

Twitter has struggled to retain advertisers since the Tesla CEO acquired the platform in October 2022. Advertisers have been wary about being associated with Twitter after the San Francisco-based company laid off nearly 8,000 employees in November 2022.

This has been detrimental for the growth of Twitter since advertisers make up for 90 percent of the company’s revenue.

Confusion about Twitter’s policies regarding content moderation and concerns over offensive content have also impacted the ad revenue prospects for the microblogging platform.

According to reports, as many as 625 advertisers have pulled their ads from Twitter in recent months. The likes of Jeep, Unilever, Merck, Coca-Cola, and Wells Fargo have stopped spending on the platform since January. This has led to a stinging loss of around $4.5 billion in advertising revenue for Twitter.

Twitter’s new CEO to drive growth

Last month, Musk had named former NBCUniversal advertising chief Linda Yaccarino as the company’s new CEO.

Yaccarino is a top-notch executive with deep ties to the advertising industry and has spent several years modernizing the advertising business at Comcast Corp-owned NBCUniversal.

Twitter has also roped in NBCUniversal’s senior executive Joe Benarroch for a business operations role.