Elon Musk’s 2022 purchase of Twitter lit an ideological firestorm that is still smoldering today. Overshadowed by that ongoing debate is the steady transformation of the feisty social media platform, rebranded now as X.com, or simply X.

What began as a site for short messages and trending conversations has evolved into a platform poised to become a hub for public discourse and new methods of communication, under the banner of free speech.

Elon Musk has been vocal in expressing his vision for X as a global hub of free and open dialogue. Beyond that big-picture goal, he has moved the platform into subscription-based features that are uncommon in such a high-profile social media site. Both moves are changing the way social media works. 

Why did Elon Musk buy Twitter?

Musk’s decision to buy Twitter was driven by a desire to restore free speech to social media and to build an “everything app” where users can engage, share, and even monetize their content.

Though he made swift changes after the acquisition—layoffs, cost-cutting, and by necessity less reliance on ad-centric revenue—the biggest shift has been X’s launch of a paid subscription model that offers users enhanced features. These include longer posts, fewer ads, and even an AI tool, Grok, that has features that its main competitor ChatGPT lacks.

These business moves signal a clear break from the platform’s previous ad-reliant model. As X continues to evolve, it is carving out its own unique role as a site for open conversation in which users, creators, and even journalists can take advantage of new and expanded tools.

X.com’s shift toward subscription revenue

One of the most notable changes under Musk was the introduction of Twitter Blue (later rebranded to X Premium), a subscription service offering users features such as verification (the blue checkmark), editing posts, longer post limits, full articles, reduced ads, enhanced post distribution, and more.

Musk’s goal was to reduce dependency on ad sales by generating more direct income from users, especially given concerns about advertiser pullback. Musk also faced the prospect of losing significant ad revenue for a range of reasons including backlash from activists against his stated intention to end certain “content moderation” practices at the company. 

Musk’s bold move to lay bare the history of the company he bought

Those practices were later detailed in the Twitter Files¹ documents released and reported on by journalists Matt Taibbi, Bari Weiss, Michael Shellenberger, and Lee Fang. 

Musk gave these reporters access to a vast trove of internal Twitter documents in a stated effort to provide transparency to the company’s self-described content moderation activities prior to Musk’s October 2022 purchase of Twitter.

These events are mentioned as context to the transformation of Twitter’s business model into something very different, which included Twitter’s wholesale rebranding as X and its launch of multiple new features.

What did Elon Musk do to offset huge reductions in ad revenue?

From a pure business perspective, Musk had two options to compensate for dramatically shrinking ad revenues. As any business needs to do when faced with such a dilemma, he had to find ways to reduce expenses and/or create and grow new revenue streams. 

He has done both. The second part of that effort is a work in progress. 

Extraordinarily, within six months of acquiring Twitter, Musk had cut its workforce from 7,500 employees to approximately 1,500, according to the Financial Times. Many of those employees left voluntarily while others were let go. This move alone likely saved hundreds of millions in operational costs, given that salaries typically make up a major portion of company expenses. 

However, revenue challenges at X continued despite these cuts​. The social media giant needed to create new revenue streams. Hence the creation of X Premium, which is part of a greater diversification of income sources for X. 

Musk’s overall goal seems to be to make X a multi-functional platform that encompasses more than social media. The idea is to create a more sustainable long-term business model.

X’s new subscription features

Since the rebranding of Twitter to X, several new features have been introduced to enhance user experience, expand functionality, and provide greater monetization opportunities. Below is a list of many of the major features added to X.

Note that X uses the general term “X Premium” to refer to the features offered under all three subscription tiers listed below. 

X Basic features and benefits

The first paid subscription tier is called Basic. For $3 per month or $32 per year, Basic subscribers are able to:

• See minimal ads, which gives them a cleaner, less distracting experience.
  
• Benefit from enhanced security features such as password security, and alerts regarding unusual account activity.
  
• Receive verification: Users subscribing to any of the three tiers of X Premium accounts receive a blue checkmark, signifying verification. The verification attests that the account is a real person, not a bot. This feature was previously limited to public figures but is now available to all subscribers. The checkmark’s reason for being, at least in part, is related to Twitter’s longstanding problem with bot accounts. A bot is an automated software that posts or interacts on social platforms, mimicking human behavior. Though not all bots are malicious, those that are can spread misinformation, generate fake engagement, or spam users with unwanted content. This is a complex problem that Musk continues to try to clean up. 

X Premium features and benefits

The middle tier in X’s subscription offerings is X Premium. This subscription level costs $8 per month or $84 per year. It provides X users with all of the features that a Basic account enjoys plus the following: 

• Access to a powerful real-time conversational AI tool called Grok. See the comparison between Grok and ChatGPT below.
  
• Posts of up to 25,000 characters, which is a huge increase over the 280-character post limit for users with free or Basic plan X accounts. This feature allows a user to create long-form content without needing to start multiple content threads.
  
• The ability to edit posts up to one hour after a post is published. This new feature allows a user to correct mistakes in a published post. 
  
• Access to monetization options that enable revenue generation through ads and subscriptions. This feature is ideal for content creators.
  
• Two-factor authentication to boost account security.
  
• Bookmark folders to organize saved posts into folders for easier access.

X Premium + features and benefits

Premium + is the third tier in X’s Premium offerings. This subscription option costs $16 per month or $168 per year. This top-tier X subscription includes every feature above plus the following:

• Premium+ subscribers and verified organizations can write and share long-form articles directly on the platform, similar to blog posts or newsletters. This feature, called X Articles, allows for rich formatting and embedding of images and videos.​
  
• Premium+ accounts are completely ad-free, unlike the steady diet of ads served to users that have free X accounts. Imagine being able to watch YouTube videos without having to deal with the relentless ads that accompany the videos. Such an experience would not be unlike what X Premium+ users enjoy.
  
• Premium + users’ accounts also gain visibility by having replies and posts prioritized in searches and threads. This helps their posts gain more interaction and additional followers. 

The monetization options noted above include the ability to receive ad revenue from ads shown in the post replies of content creators with large followings. Content creators also can offer exclusive content to their paying subscribers, such as videos, tutorials, and insider insights.

How does X compare with other social media platforms?

Few platforms compare directly to X regarding features, especially with its Premium offerings of longer posts, video uploads, and the platform’s more active approach to monetizing content of subscribers with large followings. 

LinkedIn comes closest in terms of premium subscription tiers, but its professional networking focus is much narrower than X’s target audience. 

 

Facebook and Instagram are broader in scope, but they don’t provide the same advanced user experience enhancements that X offers to its Premium subscribers. 

In terms of reach, Facebook and Instagram outclass X due to their massive global user bases, but X remains dominant in real-time discussions, news, and public discourse. X’s broad range of users includes government and business leaders, celebrities, influencers, and professionals of all stripes. 

X makes direct engagement with world leaders possible

X also has one feature no other platform can match. X subscribers have direct access to many of the most powerful and influential people in the world, as a substantial majority of these individuals, as well as their organizations, are active on the platform.  

On X, users can tag business and government leaders directly. Mentions or tags can grab their attention, and politicians or CEOs can respond to feedback they get on their posts in real-time. 

Elon Musk explained it this way in a short YouTube clip:

“The biggest thing for the X platform is if you’re trying to reach senior decision makers, if you want to reach the most influential people in the world, not just social media influencers, but [those who] actually run companies, run countries, and are the sort of Intellectuals of the world, then the X platform is the best… “It’s almost the only way to reach them. They’re not watching TV. They’re not doing TikTok videos. So although X is smaller than the other social media networks, they’re the most influential people in the world.”

How many free users and paid subscribers does X have?

Currently, X has more than 500 million monthly active users worldwide and about half that many daily active users, according to Backlinko. The website reports that though the vast majority of X accounts are free users, the company now has an estimated 1 to 3 million paid subscribers. 

X is banking on its new AI chat, Grok, once its features become known, to grow its paid subscriber base. 

How does X’s Grok stack up against ChatGPT?

Both Grok and ChatGPT are known as a large language model AI or conversational AI. This is a type of artificial intelligence designed to understand and generate human-like text based on patterns learned from massive amounts of data. 

ChatGPT excels in versatility and general knowledge. It’s designed to handle a wide range of queries, from casual conversations to complex problem-solving. However, only the paid GPT Plus version of the tool can access real-time information. Also the tool can struggle with rapidly evolving contexts. 

Grok is designed with a social media focus. It can access the vast X database to offer more personalized real-time insights that ChatGPT would struggle to provide. This makes it strong in understanding trending topics, user sentiments, and social interactions.

On the minus side, Grok’s focus on social media may limit its ability to perform in areas outside this realm, where broader knowledge or deeper understanding is required. 

In summary, ChatGPT excels in general, multi-purpose applications, while Grok is more specialized in social media and real-time contexts. Each has limitations depending on the specific use case. Therefore, some savvy content creators rely on both tools for research and writing assistance.

Recent or in-the-works X features

X continues to release new Premium features. Others are in the planning stages. Here’s a sampling:

Expanded media uploads

Users can now upload videos up to 2 hours long and higher resolution images (up to 1080p) as part of a broader content-sharing strategy, For example, a filmmaker can share full short films or documentaries on the platform.

Enhanced direct messaging features

X has improved its direct messaging (DM) features with encrypted DMs and DM group chats. Users can now enjoy more secure conversations with end-to-end encryption on certain direct messages. The platform also now supports creating large group chats via DMs.

Not unlike the popular chat tool Zoom, organizations can use X to collaborate with remote teams and hold private conversations about sensitive projects.

Super app features in development

Musk has signaled intentions to turn X into an all-in-one app where users can access payments, commerce, and more. 

Improved community and safety tools

X has introduced a community-based moderation tool known as Community Notes. The feature allows users to participate in fact-checking and provide context for certain posts through its Community Notes feature. For example, a post about a controversial topic might display additional context added by community members to help users better understand the issue.

Reshaping public discourse

In its current transformation, X.com is more than just a social media platform. X prides itself on being an open channel for public dialogue that also provides direct access to influential figures. One of its goals is to reshape how people connect with leaders in business and government. 

The platform highlights transparency and accountability through open exchanges and offers its users communication tools that stand apart from traditional social media platforms by fostering real-time interactions. 

As the platform grows, it hopes to become a trusted space for global discourse. Time will tell if Elon Musk can achieve this lofty goal.

Notes

1. The Twitter Files revealed internal communications at Twitter suggesting that, before Musk’s acquisition, the platform practiced significant censorship under the guise of content moderation. Key points from this investigation: 

• Bias in content moderation: The investigation suggested that Twitter’s moderation policies disproportionately affected certain political viewpoints. Moreover, internal Twitter documents and communications revealed that decisions to ban or suppress content were sometimes made at the behest of government officials, media narratives, or internal biases rather than purely based on violations of Twitter’s policies.
  
• The Hunter Biden laptop story: One of the most publicized examples of selective censorship highlighted in the Twitter Files was Twitter’s decision to suppress the Hunter Biden laptop story during the 2020 U.S. presidential election. Twitter blocked the New York Post’s reporting on the story. Its rationale was a claim that the story violated the platform’s rules against hacked materials, even though the decision to classify the story in this way was debated internally. This move was criticized as censorship of content that could have affected the political landscape.
  
• Coordination with government and media: The Twitter Files documented instances where Twitter executives appeared to coordinate with US government officials and external organizations to flag content or accounts deemed problematic. While this was framed as necessary to combat misinformation and disinformation, critics argued that this collaboration resulted in the suppression of legitimate viewpoints that ran counter to mainstream media or governmental narratives.
  
• Shadowbanning and algorithmic suppression: Twitter executives publicly denied “shadowbanning,” but the Twitter Files revealed that the platform employed algorithmic tools to reduce the visibility of certain users and their content without outright banning them. This practice, which targeted some conservative voices, was labeled as “visibility filtering.”
  
• Pressure from external stakeholders: The Twitter Files also showed how Twitter was influenced by external pressure, including political groups, activists, and corporate partners. These stakeholders often pushed the platform to act more aggressively in moderating content, leading to the selective enforcement of rules against some political perspectives.