Elon Musk, Twitter Inc’s biggest shareholder, on Saturday proposed a raft of changes to the social media giant’s Twitter Blue premium subscription service, including slashing its price, banning advertising and giving an option to pay in the cryptocurrency dogecoin.
Musk, who disclosed a 9.2 percent stake in Twitter early last week, was offered a seat on its board of directors, a move which made some Twitter employees panic over the future of its ability to moderate content.
Twitter Blue, launched in June last year, is Twitter’s first subscription service and offers “exclusive access to premium features” on a monthly subscription basis, Twitter says. It is available in Australia, Canada, New Zealand and the US.
Photo: AFP
In a Twitter post, the head of electric vehicle maker Tesla Inc suggested that users who sign up for Twitter Blue should pay significantly less than the current US$2.99 a month, and should get an authentication checkmark on their account as well as an option to pay in local currency.
“Price should probably be ~$2/month, but paid 12 months up front & account doesn’t get checkmark for 60 days (watch for credit card chargebacks) & suspended with no refund if used for scam/spam,” Musk wrote on Twitter.
“And no ads,” he added. “The power of corporations to dictate policy is greatly enhanced if Twitter depends on advertising money to survive.”
Musk also proposed an option to pay with dogecoin and asked Twitter users for their views.
Twitter declined to comment on Musk’s suggestions.
The company already allows people tip their favorite content creators using bitcoin. Twitter had said last year that it planned to support authentication for non-fungible tokens, which are digital certificates that exist on a blockchain and used to represent ownership of assets such as images or videos.
Musk also started a poll on his Twitter account — which has more than 81 million followers — asking whether the firm’s San Francisco headquarters should be converted to a homeless shelter as “no one shows up” to work there.
The poll received more than 300,000 votes in an hour, with 90 percent answering yes.
Musk is set to join Twitter chief executive officer Parag Agrawal at a company meeting this week to address employee questions.
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