Elon Musk’s company, X, is planning to generate new revenue selling off old Twitter handles, according to Forbes. The company has started making available prized account names that their original owners aren’t using, as shown in emails viewed Forbes reporter Alex Konrad. X’s inactive account policy encourages users to log in at least 30 days to prevent their accounts from being removed. In some cases, X’s @Handle Team has sought up to $50,000 from potential buyers.
This move comes as X tries to make up for a significant shortfall in advertising revenue following Elon Musk’s takeover of Twitter last November. Over the past year, many advertisers have stopped 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 exclusively to Insider marketing consultancy Ebiquity reveals that the majority of the world’s biggest-spending advertisers have dropped X since Musk’s acquisition. Additionally, an analysis from advertising analytics firm Guideline shows that X’s US ad revenue has declined 55% or more each month since the takeover.
Despite the advertising challenges, X executives remain optimistic about their ad business. CEO Linda Yaccarino stated that “90% of the top 100 advertisers have returned to X in the last twelve weeks alone.” To mitigate the drop in advertising revenue, X has turned to subscriptions. The company launched a paid-for premium offering last year and recently introduced different tiers with additional features.
In a recent announcement, Musk stated that X Premium+ subscribers would have early access to its soon-to-launch ChatGPT rival, Grok. Previously, advertising accounted for 90% of X’s revenue, but Musk aims to shift towards deriving approximately half of the company’s revenue from subscriptions.
Despite the challenges, X’s value remains significant. The company recently awarded stock grants to employees, suggesting a valuation of around $19 billion, which is less than half of what Musk paid to acquire it a year ago. X has not provided a comment on these developments at this time.