In a recent live-streamed discussion with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Elon Musk, the tech mogul behind X (formerly known as Twitter), proposed a potential solution to the platform's bot problem: a nominal monthly subscription fee.
Musk believes this could be an effective strategy to combat the increasing sophistication and prevalence of artificial intelligence bots on the platform.
Musk acknowledged the complexity of the issue, stating, "This is actually a super tough problem." He further explained, "The single most important reason that we're moving to having a small monthly payment for use of the X system is, it's the only way I could think of to combat vast armies of bots."
Musk's proposed solution would impose a financial burden on those operating bots, as each new bot would necessitate a new payment method. "If somebody even has to pay a few dollars or something, some minor amount, the effective cost of bots is very high and then you also have to get a new payment method every time you have a new bot," Musk elaborated.
In addition to this, Musk revealed that X would prioritize content generated by premium users of the platform. Currently, X Premium charges $8 monthly or $84 annually, offering users a blue checkmark and early access to new features. Musk also announced plans for a more affordable premium pricing tier, although he did not disclose the proposed cost.
"We want it to be just a small amount of money," Musk said. "And it's a longer discussion, but in my view, this is actually the only defense against vast armies of bots. Because as the AI gets very good, it's actually able to pass these sort of CAPTCHA tests better than humans." Musk pointed out that AI bots can often solve CAPTCHA tests more rapidly than humans.
According to a report by Platformer, Musk had previously contemplated making X a paid platform. The report suggests that Musk discussed this possibility with venture capitalist David Sacks last year, but ultimately opted for a verification option instead.
Earlier this month, Musk revealed that X's advertising revenue was still down by 60%. He attributed this significant loss to pressure from the Anti-Defamation League on the platform's advertisers and threatened legal action against the organization.
"Based on what we've heard from advertisers, ADL seems to be responsible for most of our revenue loss," Musk alleged. "Giving them maximum benefit of the doubt, I don't see any scenario where they're responsible for less than 10% of the value destruction, so ~$4 billion."
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