In a bid to bolster Twitter’s revenue model and support citizen journalism, Tesla CEO Elon Musk has unveiled a new monetization strategy that allows content creators on the platform to generate income from their posts. This marks the latest in a series of transformative initiatives since Musk’s takeover of Twitter.

The company has implemented several bold measures aimed at profitability, including mass layoffs and the introduction of Twitter Blue subscriptions. Despite some pushback from previously verified users over paying a monthly fee for a ‘Blue checkmark’, Musk views these subscriptions as a critical revenue source for the platform.

The newly launched monetization scheme, a user-centric revamp, is designed to enhance follower engagement and diversify revenue streams on the platform. It enables users worldwide to generate income from their posts across various content formats.

The ‘Subscriptions’ feature allows Twitter users to charge followers a monthly fee, based on a set of price points established by Twitter. Once subscribed, followers gain access to the creator’s exclusive content, which is not publicly viewable.

Twitter has announced that creators can retain up to 97% of the revenue until they reach $50,000 in lifetime earnings, after which the creator’s revenue share will be reduced to 80%. In partnership with payment processing company Stripe, Twitter will facilitate payments to creators. However, the revenue sharing will only commence after users reach a minimum earnings threshold of $50.

The subscription services are non-refundable, even if a creator’s Twitter account is suspended. In such cases, users must manually unsubscribe to prevent automatic monthly payments to inactive accounts.

Members of the Crypto Twitter community, who have gained significant credibility and followership over years of active posting, have warmly received the introduction of content creator subscriptions.

In addition to these measures, Musk is also leveraging artificial intelligence (AI) to identify and curb misinformation on the platform. Despite his previously expressed societal concerns over AI development, Musk has reportedly purchased nearly 10,000 graphics processing units (GPUs) to build forthcoming AI tools.