Elon Musk: This website is free - but not for long

Elon Musk has said helium volition commencement charging radical to usage the societal media tract formerly known arsenic Twitter.

NBC News reports the billionaire businessman, who renamed the level to X, revealed connected a unrecorded watercourse that the institution would present a "small monthly payment" to combat "vast armies of bots".

Musk has agelong complained astir the beingness of fake accounts connected the platform, and tried to usage his concerns to wriggle retired of his woody to bargain it past year.

He did not connection further details astir the caller fee, specified arsenic a terms oregon whether it would see other features.

Sky News has contacted X for comment, though its property bureau is mostly unresponsive.

The determination would termination disconnected what has agelong been 1 of the site's astir fashionable memes, wherever users caption shots of peculiarly striking posts with a near-incredulous "this website is free".

X already offers a premium subscription costing £9.60 a month, which gives users a verification tick, lets them constitute longer posts and edit existing ones, and prioritises their relationship successful hunt results.

Musk spoke astir the plans successful a speech with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, wherever the Tesla and SpaceX proprietor sought to code disapproval implicit his moving of the platform.

Since buying Twitter for $44bn (£38bn), the self-described "free code absolutist" has been accused of allowing disinformation, racism, misogyny, and antisemitism to thrive.

He has besides reinstated antecedently banned accounts similar those of Donald Trump and Andrew Tate.

Last month, the level was criticised for taking respective days to region posts promoting Holocaust denial, contempt being repeatedly highlighted by the Auschwitz Museum.

Musk insists he's against 'hatred'

Musk, who has threatened to writer groups similar the Anti Defamation League and Center for Countering Digital Hate for criticising his enactment of X, claimed helium was "against attacking immoderate group".

Referencing his ambition to colonise Mars, helium said humanity would ne'er go "a spacefaring civilisation" if "infighting" and "hatred" were allowed to thrive.

Musk besides utilized the unrecorded watercourse with Mr Netanyahu to boast that X present has 550 cardinal "monthly users", generating betwixt 100 cardinal and 200 cardinal posts per day.

It has remained fashionable contempt accrued contention from smaller platforms similar Bluesky and Mastodon, and the egregiously akin Threads app from Meta.

Much of Musk's absorption has been connected monetising X's idiosyncratic base, with advertiser spending having dropped owed to concerns astir his moderation policies.

His semipermanent program is to crook it into an "everything app" that tin grip things similar video calls and adjacent payments, seemingly modelled connected China's WeChat.

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Musk's speech with Mr Netanyahu connected Monday took spot during the politician's sojourn to California, which was greeted with immoderate protests.

He has faced immense absorption successful his location state implicit his planned overhaul of the judiciary, which critics accidental volition destruct its strategy of checks and balances.

It came aft Musk met with different satellite leader, Turkey's President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, successful New York.