Elon Musk’s company, X, is taking steps to generate new revenue by selling off old Twitter handles, according to a report by Forbes on Friday. The company is planning to make available valuable account names that are currently unused by their original owners. This aligns with X’s inactive account policy, which encourages users to log in at least once every 30 days to prevent their accounts from being removed.
Forbes reporter Alex Konrad viewed emails from X employees that confirm the company’s intentions. In some cases, X’s @Handle Team has sought up to $50,000 from potential buyers for these coveted Twitter handles.
X has faced a significant decline in advertising revenue since Elon Musk acquired the company in November last year. Some advertisers have completely halted or drastically reduced their spending on X due to concerns about the content it hosts and the reliability and effectiveness of its ad platform. Data provided by marketing consultancy Ebiquity exclusively to Insider revealed that the majority of the world’s biggest-spending advertisers have dropped X following Musk’s takeover. Additionally, a separate analysis from advertising analytics firm Guideline found that X’s US ad revenue has decreased by 55% or more each month since Musk’s acquisition.
However, X’s executives have held a more optimistic view of its ad business. CEO Linda Yaccarino stated in a September interview that “90% of the top 100 advertisers have returned to X in the last twelve weeks alone,” referring to the company’s highest-spending advertisers from the previous year.
To address the advertising decline, X has introduced subscription-based offerings. Last year, the company launched a paid premium service, which was updated last month with different tiers offering additional features like boosted visibility and ad-free browsing. Musk recently announced that X Premium+ subscribers would have early access to the upcoming ChatGPT rival, Grok.
In 2021, advertising accounted for 90% of X’s revenue when it last publicly reported its financial results. Following his takeover, Musk expressed his desire for the company to derive approximately half of its revenue from subscriptions.
X recently granted stock to its employees, indicating that the company is now valued at around $19 billion. This is less than half of the $44 billion Musk paid to acquire the company a year ago.
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