Elon Musk says Twitter’s ad revenue has dropped by 50 percent

Twitter finally begins paying some of its creators

 

Will Shanklin
Will Shanklin

Twitter’s ad-revenue sharing program for creators has officially launched — and it’s reportedly already begun paying eligible Blue subscribers. Elon Musk announced the initiative in February, but with scant details about how it would work, nobody knew quite what to expect. However, some high-profile users report today they’ve received notifications about incoming deposits — including one user claiming he’s set to receive over $24,000. The rewards are based on ads in replies to eligible users’ content.

The program incentivizes creators who contribute popular content that drives ads — rewarding accounts that help Twitter make money (while driving new Blue subscriptions). “This means that creators can get a share in ad revenue starting in the replies to their posts,” a Twitter help article published today reads. “This is part of our effort to help people earn a living directly on Twitter.” Musk tweeted today that payouts “will be cumulative from when I first promised to do so in February.”

However, the bar is high to receive a transfer from the Musk-owned social media company. The support post says the revenue-sharing system applies to Twitter Blue or Verified Organizations subscribers with at least five million post impressions in each of the past three months. They’ll also need to pass a human review and adhere to the company’s Creator Subscriptions policies; Twitter will then pay eligible users using a Stripe account. The company says it will soon launch an application process, found under Monetization in account settings.

The move aims to make Twitter a more attractive platform for content creators. It may not be a coincidence that the program arrived about a week after Meta launched its Twitter rival Threads, which didn’t take long to gain traction — gaining over 100 million users in its first five days. That’s higher than previous record-holders ChatGPT and TikTok.

The Twitter logo is shown at its corporate headquarters  in San Francisco, California April 28, 2015. Twitter Inc. cut its full-year revenue forecast due to weak demand for its direct response products, sending its shares down as much as 24 percent on Tuesday. Twitter said it expected 2015 revenue of $2.17 billion to$2.27 billion, compared with an earlier forecast of $2.3 billion to $2.35 billion. Analysts on average had been expecting full-year revenue of $2.37 billion. REUTERS/Robert Galbraith

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