Twitter CEO Elon Musk has announced plans to introduce an advertising-free version of its subscription product, as the company looks to increase its revenue and raise the demand for its premium offering.
The news comes a week after The Information revealed that over 500 advertisers had paused their spending on Twitter since Elon Musk’s takeover, leading to a 40% decrease in revenue compared to last year.
Elon Musk has subsequently targeted an increase in its subscription revenue as a key part of the social media app’s business plan, according to The Guardian.
Twitter relaunched its premium offering for the second time in December, offering everyone perks such as ‘blue tick’ account verification for £6.50 ($8) a month. This soon lead to brands like Nintendo and Apple being impersonated by online trolls with seemingly verified accounts.
The Tesla CEO tweeted about the ad-free tier launch: “Ads are too frequent on Twitter and too big. Taking steps to address both in coming weeks.
“Also, there will be a higher priced subscription that allows zero ads.”
Also, there will be a higher priced subscription that allows zero ads
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) January 21, 2023
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Musk hopes to reduce the platform’s reliance on advertising as he looks to pay off an interest payment on the £11.2 billion ($13 billion) debt he put on the company as part of the takeover.
Musk told Twitter staff in a company-wide email in November: “Without significant subscription revenue, there is a good chance Twitter will not survive the upcoming economic downturn. We need roughly half of our revenue to be subscription.”
