Twitter No Longer Free? Elon Drops Bomb about Commercial Use of Twitter

With Elon’s purchase of Twitter taking the company private, something Elon says will help him unlock value in the company, many changes are expected to come to the social media giant.

As of now, many of those are still somewhat fuzzy and relate to free speech and censorship on the platform, particularly in regards to how it handles suspensions, what activity or posted statements result in a suspension, and what content the algorithm promotes in the feed.

Additionally, Elon has expressed some inclination to rework anonymity on the platform, though that primarily seems to be him wanting to make accounts be verified as authentic people rather than getting rid of anonymity completely as a way of getting rid of bots, which plague the platform.

Now, however, it appears that there’s more than just how speech and anonymity are treated by the platform that could change as the old guard is chased out and Elon comes in: now Twitter could no longer be free to use.

Elon announced as much in a comment that followed a typically weird post from him, one about the Freemasons. According to Elon, there could soon be a slight cost to Twitter for commerical users:

Ultimately, the downfall of the Freemasons was giving away their stonecutting services for nothing

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

Fox Business, giving a bit of context on his tweet and why he might be looking into ratcheting up the cost of Twitter, notes that “Musk pitched a variety of ideas to banks last week to get help with his $44 billion acquisition of Twitter, including monetizing certain viral tweets and cutting salaries for the board“.

So, perhaps the idea is a way he’s planning on making the company more profitable so as to be able to more quickly or easily repay the massive amount of debt he took out to finance the whopper of a $44 billion purchase.

However, it’s unclear how serious Musk is about this proposal, or other ones having to do with the platform’s profitability. Though he does need to repay the debt he took out to buy the platform, he’s made it clear that his purchase was more rooted in ideology than economics.

In an SEC filing, for example, Musk said “I invested in Twitter as I believe in its potential to be the platform for free speech around the globe, and I believe free speech is a societal imperative for a functioning democracy.” Though he also talks about unlocking value, that seems to be secondary to him when compared against the free speech issue, which is what he really cares about.

Further evidence for that comes from a remark he made to TED2022 shortly before the purchase was announced, during which he said that the purchase was  “not a way to make money.” He then added, “I don’t care about the economics at all.”

So, though Musk might need to raise some money from the platform to pay off the debt, it seems unlikely that the focus, in the short-term, at least, will be on other profit-oriented updates and changes.

By: Gen Z Conservative, editor of GenZConservative.com. Follow me on Parler and Gettr.