Musk says Twitter, now X, is moving to monthly subscriptions

Elon Musk discussed his plans for Twitter, now called X, on Monday during a livestreamed conversation with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Among other things, Musk said the social network is “moving to having a small monthly payment for use of the X system” in order to combat “vast armies of bots.”

Musk did not say how much a new plan would cost users of the social network, or what other features would or would not be included with payment at the lowest tier.

During the livestream, Musk also divulged some new metrics from X, saying it now has 550 million “monthly users,” who generate 100 million to 200 million posts per day.

Musk did not disclose how many of the company’s monthly users are authentic, versus bots. He also did not make an apples-to-apples comparison with metrics previously used by Twitter. In May 2022, before Musk’s takeover, Twitter reported that it had “average monetizable daily active usage” of 229 million.

The discussion with Netanyahu was meant to focus on theoretical risks of artificial intelligence technology, and how AI should potentially be regulated. However, Musk also used it to dispute the perception that his social network tolerates hate speech and antisemitism.

The meeting followed widespread criticism of Musk by civil rights groups over his amplification of bigotry on his social network, including antisemitic accounts, content and conspiracies.

In recent weeks, Musk has threatened to sue the Anti-Defamation League, a Jewish-led organization, alleging that they tried to “kill” his social network. Musk has blamed the ADL, rather than his own business decisions, for a 60% drop in revenue at X and said he had “no choice” but to file a defamation lawsuit against the group.

Musk and X Corp. have not yet filed any known lawsuit against the ADL, and did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Before meeting with Netanyahu, Musk also accused George Soros’ foundation of wanting to “destroy” Western civilization. The Hungarian-American Jewish philanthropist is the founder of Open Society Foundations, which donates to a variety of civil society groups, and he is the subject of several antisemitic conspiracy theories.

On his social media platform, Musk has repeatedly disparaged transgender people, federal regulators, politicians, journalists, whistleblowers, critics of his companies, and short sellers. Despite that history, Musk told Netanyahu on Monday, “I’m sort of against attacking any group, you know. Doesn’t…