Elon Musk suggests charging governments and corporations a ‘slight cost’ to use Twitter

Photo by Sean Zanni/Patrick McMullan via Getty Images

The world's richest man is busy with ideas for potential changes to the platform, despite the fact that his acquisition of Twitter hasn't been finalized. His newest suggestion? Corporations and governments are being charged to use social media.

The downfall of the Freemasons was giving away their stonecutting services for nothing.

There is no commitment to this plan from Musk, as is often the case with him. It fits in with what we've heard about Musk's ideas for the platform. When pitching banks on his acquisition, Musk suggested he might charge media companies to quote or embedded his messages. The logic is simple: people want the product, so why not charge for it?

Twitter will always be free for casual users, but maybe a slight cost for commercial/government users

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) May 3, 2022

These ideas come with a lot of potential problems. If Musk wants to reduce administrative headaches, he should charge for a quote or a embed, not the first amendment. Mike Masnick of TechDirt has a great piece about these issues.

It's more straightforward to make governments and corporations pay to use the internet. How big is a company before you charge it to use a social networking site? You probably don't want The Coca-Cola Company to pay the same rate as a local brewery. How do you differentiate if not? Do you charge based on the number of followers, revenue, or something else? How much do you charge for a tiered system? Ask too much and you will push people away from social media, which will reduce the network effect that gives it value in the first place. It won't make a difference to your revenue if it's too little. And so on. These aren't easy questions, but they are.

We don't know what Musk is going to do with the social network at the moment. The world's richest man is said to play things by ear. Musk tends to disdain organized business plans when running his companies in favor of operating on instinct, according to a recent New York Times piece. Let's see where the ideas go next, it's just par for the course.