Elon Musk: Twitter may charge slight fee for commercial, govt users

Elon Musk has said Twitter Inc will always be free for casual users but may charge a slight fee for commercial and government users, as the billionaire entrepreneur tries to boost the social media platform's reach from "niche" to most Americans.

"Twitter will always be free for casual users, but maybe a slight cost for commercial/government users," Musk said in a tweet on Tuesday.

He also added that giving a service for free will lead to a downfall, giving an example of the "Freemasons" offering their service for nothing in return.

Twitter did not immediately respond to a request for comment from the Reuters news agency.

Suggesting changes

Tesla chief Musk has been suggesting a raft of changes to Twitter since last month. After adding the company to his cart recently, Musk said he wanted to enhance the platform with new features, making the algorithms open source to increase trust, defeating the spam bots, and authenticating all humans.

Last month, even before reaching a deal with Twitter, Musk had suggested a few changes to the Twitter Blue premium subscription service, including slashing its price.

At the annual Met Gala in New York on Monday, Musk said he would make Twitter transparent about how tweets are promoted or demoted and wanted its software to be publicly available for critique.