Elon Musk elaborated on his plans for Twitter monetization during an online Q&A session on Wednesday afternoon. But in addition to Musk’s growing list of “dumb” ideas since squiring the platform — including charging users for verification and then adding yet another checkmark to weed out the riffraff — this may be his loftiest yet, all things considered.
The 51-year-old human cash sieve first floated monetization on his newly-acquired platform over the weekend, when discussing some new features he plans to roll out in the coming weeks and months.
“Twitter will soon add the ability to attach long-form text to tweets, ending the absurdity of notepad screenshots,” 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 initially did not go into detail about how that would work, as Twitter ostensibly currently does not have the infrastructure to accommodate online transactions.
Not to mention, it’s going to be difficult to monetize anything when advertisers are justifiably distancing themselves from the platform due to spikes in racist behavior, ever since Musk promised to make Twitter a safe haven for “free speech.”
Yet, Musk seems to think that if there’s a will, there’s a way.
“It’s kind of a no-brainer we also need to enable monetization of content for creators,” Musk said during the chat. “And if we provide creators with the ability to post what they create on our platform, and to monetize it at a rate that is at least competitive with the alternatives, then, of course, creators will natively post their content on Twitter.”
“Then if you want to get it out of the system then OK — well, now you need to send it to a bank account,” he continued. “So now attach an authenticator bank account to your Twitter account. Then the next step would be, let’s offer an extremely compelling money market account so you get an extremely high yield on your balance.”
“And then why not move cash into Twitter?” he added. “Great, that sounds like a good idea. And then add debit cards, checks, and whatnot. And I think it will just basically make the system as useful as possible. And the more useful and entertaining it is, the more people will use it.”
Unfortunately, the inherent flaw in Musk’s plan was that adding these features will require ironclad cybersecurity, which has not exactly been the company’s strong suit until now. In fact, when the SpaceX founder acquired 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 solve Twitter’s cybersecurity problems 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 exactly the sort of thing smart and important billionaires do. But in the meantime, we would highly suggest that you not give your bank account information to Twitter.