It’s been a while since Elon Musk made news with Twitter. When the Tesla and SpaceX honcho took over the social media giant, not a few hours went by without him unleashing some chaotic new change. One of them was Twitter Blue, the subscription version of the service that allowed anyone willing to fork over eight bucks a month to get a blue checkmark that looks exactly like longtime verified version. He hoped it would one day account for half of Twitter’s revenue. But two months in it looks like a giant flop.
As per The Information (as caught by The Daily Beast), by January a measly 180,000 people had signed up for Twitter Blue. For context, that represents only .2% of monthly active users. And how much does 180,000 people paying $8 (or $11 they signed up via Apple iOS)? Just $28 million annually, or less than 1% of the company’s revenue.
Musk, who lost a probably Guinness-level amount of money last year, has struggled to find ways to make Twitter profitable. He’s also cut corners, even on janitors and bathroom toilet paper. What will he think of next to make money off a product he paid way more than he probably should have to obtain? Given this news, we may find out sooner rather than later.
(Via The Information and The Daily Beast)