Michael Gonzalez/Stringer/Getty Images
Elon Musk detailed his plans for monetizing Twitter during a online question and answer session on Wednesday afternoon. But in addition to Musk’s growing list of “dumb” ideas since taking over the platform — including charging users for verification and then adding another points for eliminating the riffraff – this might be the highest yet, all things considered.
The 51-year-old human moneymaker first broke down the monetization of his newly acquired platform over the weekend when he discussed several new features he plans to roll out in the coming weeks and months.
“Twitter will soon add the ability to attach long text to tweets, ending the absurdity of notepad images,” he tweeted, adding, “Followed by creator monetization for all forms of content”.
Great, cool. Creators like to get paid. Although it’s worth noting that Musk didn’t initially go into detail about how this would work, as Twitter apparently doesn’t currently have the infrastructure to accommodate online transactions.
Not to mention, it’ll be hard to monetize anything when advertisers are rightfully distancing themselves from the platform due to the rise of racist behavior since Musk promised to make Twitter a safe haven for “free speech.” .
However, Musk seems to think that if there’s a will, there’s a way.
“It’s kind of a no-brainer that we should also be able to monetize content for creators,” Musk said during the call. “And if we offer creators the ability to post what they create on our platform and monetize it at a rate that’s at least competitive with the alternatives, then of course creators will post their content on Twitter.”
“Then if you want to get it out of the system, then OK – well, now you have to send it to a bank account,” he continued. “So now attach a validator’s bank account to your Twitter account. Then the next step would be, let’s provide an extremely compelling money market account so that you get an extremely high yield on your balance sheet.”
“And then why not transfer money to Twitter?” he added. “Great, that sounds like a good idea. And then add debit cards, checks and whatnot. And I think it’s basically going to make the system as useful as possible. And the more useful and fun it is, the more people will use it.”
Unfortunately, the inherent flaw in Musk’s plan was that adding these features would require ironclad cybersecurity, which hasn’t exactly been the company’s strong suit until now. In fact, when the SpaceX founder bought the platform, Twitter was already riddled with cybersecurity headaches, which is why hacks continue to be a thorn in the company’s side to this day.
And how, exactly, Musk plans to fix Twitter’s cybersecurity woes after laying off half the company’s workforce remains to be seen. But we’re sure he’ll figure it out eventually, he’s a smart and important billionaire and that’s just what smart and important billionaires do. But in the meantime, we’d highly suggest not giving out your bank account information on Twitter.
