Tesla CEO Elon Musk appears to be returning to his roots, with the billionaire saying that Twitter might start offering a high-yield money market account for creators during a live-streamed meeting hosted on Twitter Spaces, according to Teslarati.
The funds could be from money earned in paywalled content.
Twitter’s “paywalled video”
Speculations say the platform is developing a “Paywalled Video” feature that lets creators charge users to access their content.
Notably, this should place the platform in direct competition with services such as Youtube shorts, TikTok, and Instagram reels.
Creators could employ this functionality to charge users as little as $1 to access their paywalled material, and as a result, they would have cash balances in their Twitter accounts.
Laying out a high-yield money market account on Twitter could boost creators on the platform to produce paywalled content.
High-yield money market accounts
High-yield money market accounts are similar to high-yield savings accounts, paying higher interest rates than traditional ones. As noted in an Insider report, traditional savings accounts offer interest rates under 1%, but high-yield savings accounts can earn about 3% interest.
While online financial services may seem different from Musk’s ventures like SpaceX and Tesla, his roots actually reflect such services.
From X.com to PayPal
In the late 90s, Musk co-founded X.com, one of the internet’s earliest online banks. X.com eventually merged with Confinity Inc. and then transformed into PayPal. eBay later purchased PayPal, and the billionaire used his earnings from the transaction to fund Tesla and SpaceX.
X: the everything app
Before acquiring Twitter, Musk floated the idea of laying out “X,” an “everything app” that would reflect much of WeChat’s functionalities, China’s all-in-one super app. He noted that Twitter’s acquisition would accelerate the creation of an everything app like X by around 3 to 5 years.
Twitter’s high-yield savings feature could be just one of the many changes coming to the social media platform.
In previous statements, Larry Lee, Rapyd’s global head of financial networks, said, “Musk probably has the best chance at creating a ‘super app’. Such an app could include ride-hailing, food delivery, online payments, and more.”
Twitter Blue subscription
However, the CEO has his hands full with Twitter’s existing issues for now. Reports suggest that Musk and Twitter are currently addressing the platform’s problems with bots, spam, and troll accounts. Musk also has to refine the $8 Twitter Blue rollout, which provides user verification marks to people willing to subscribe to it.
