Elon Musk Has Funding Difficulties, Twitter Discounts Twitter Blue Subscriptions to Increase Revenue

Twitter broadcasts a Twitter Blue subscription discount. (photo: Twitter @twittersupport)

JAKARTA - Since Elon Musk took over Twitter, one of his goals has been to build his subscriptions business, as well as launch a revamped Twitter Blue plan that gives subscribers a "verified" tick, reduced ads, preferential treatment with its algorithms, and other opportunity benefits.

The subscription feature, which is still available only via iOS or web, now also offers an annual subscription price with a discount for subscribers, who can choose instead of the web price of USD 8 per month or the price on iOS of US$11 per month due to a 30 percent load from Apple to consumers.

If users are looking to get additional funding quickly, a Twitter Blue yearly subscription is available on the web for $84 per year, which means you can save about 12 percent compared to paying for a monthly web subscription or 36 percent from paying through iOS.

It's unclear whether Apple would care if Twitter lifted its cut this way, but Apple has historically carved out exceptions in its App Store Guidelines for this sort of thing: "reader" apps and "multiplatform services" typically allow users to sign in to subscriptions already purchased elsewhere. without paying any fees at Apple.

The new annual purchase option on Twitter is listed on the Twitter support page as of today, but we haven't found any other significant changes to the plan yet. Whether the user pays monthly or annually, the account checkmark will take an indeterminate amount of time to appear, and the user must verify the phone number to activate it.

The accelerated payment option comes under the shadow of recent reports that Twitter has defaulted on rent payments on some of its office spaces, indicating it is struggling financially.

They were sued for non-payment of rent in San Francisco, and in Singapore, and there were numerous reports of employees walking out of the office because Twitter was not paying rent for space.

There was also a report Tuesday morning January 17 from the Financial Times, which cited three unnamed sources as saying the first installment of interest payments on the USD 13 billion (IDR 195.3 trillion) loan that Musk used to finance the USD 44 billion takeover of Twitter (IDR 661. trillion) will mature at the end of January 2023.

The paper noted that bankers were in discussions with Musk about restructuring some of his expensive unsecured debt with margin loans backed by his stake in Tesla.

Musk's fortune, which is now worth 137 billion US dollars (IDR 2.058 trillion) or more according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index. This number has fallen sharply recently, falling far enough for Guinness to call it a new world record.

The Verge reports that at least with this annual subscription, anyone interested in helping Musk's financial situation can do their bit to keep the lights on and doors open in the billionaire's home.