Elon Musk has said in a post on X that he is considering implementing a “small fee” for new users if they want to post, bookmark, or like on the platform with the aim of tackling the issue of automatized accounts, or “bots.”
Posting on the social media platform, Musk said that “Current AI (and troll farms) can pass ‘are you a bot’ with ease,” without specifying any details about how much the fee would be or the date it may be implemented. But Musk did say the measure would last three months in a different post on X.
Unfortunately, a small fee for new user write access is the only way to curb the relentless onslaught of bots.
Current AI (and troll farms) can pass “are you a bot” with ease.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) April 15, 2024
What would Elon Musk’s new charge mean for X users?
It will still be possible to access the platform without having to pay, but new users would be prevented from creating content by tweeting, liking, or bookmarking a post. A similar restriction began last October in New Zealand and the Philippines, where new unverified users were charged one US dollar per year to interact with posts.
At present, the only paid features for X are for premium subscribers, which give access to the monetization program, an ad-free version, access to the platform’s generative artificial intelligence (GenAI) chatbot, and more reply visibility.
Elon Musk has for a long time voiced his concerns about bots on X, promising his customers he would tackle the problem when he finalized his takeover of the platform in late 2022. However, the problem with bots has worsened, according to experts, and is now powered by AI.
The platform has lost almost a quarter of its US users since November 2022, the firm Sensor Tower told NBC News last month, and the value of X also dropped with the company seeing a decline in advertising revenues.
The billionaire’s pay package at Tesla
On Wednesday, the billionaire entrepreneur’s electric car company Tesla asked its shareholders to once again approve its CEO’s record-breaking $56 billion pay that was set in 2018. A Delaware judge rejected the pay package in January, calling it excessive and saying the company’s board failed to justify it.
The compensation does not include a salary or cash bonus but sets rewards based on Tesla’s market value rising to as much as $650 billion over the next ten years. Tesla is now valued at over $500 billion, according to LSEG data.
Elon Musk’s pay was rejected by Kathaleen McCormick of Delaware’s court of chancery, who judged the compensation granted by the board to be “an unfathomable sum” that was unfair to shareholders.
The company’s request for a new vote is seemingly an attempt to raise support for Elon Musk’s pay package and serve as a public rejection of the court’s decision. The January ruling, which can be appealed, nullified the largest pay package in corporate America.
McCormick also oversaw Twitter’s (X’s) July 2022 lawsuit against Elon Musk when he tried to break his $44 billion contract to buy the social media platform. Musk’s compensation for 2023 was exactly zero dollars, the filing showed. The billionaire does not take a salary from the company and is compensated through stock options.
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