Elon Musk to share Twitter Ad revenue only with Twitter Blue subscribers

Elon Musk says Twitter will start sharing revenue from responsive thread ads with creators who are subscribed to Twitter Blue Verified. (According to Musk, "legacy" verified brands will be gone in "a few months.") He says the program will start today, although there are currently very few details on how it will work.

Subscribing to Blue will currently cost you $8 per month if purchased directly through their site or $11 per month from the Apple App Store or Google Play, but the cheapest version is an annual subscription directly from Twitter for $84. It's unclear how many viral tweets it would take to pay for that, but it could be difficult given Twitter's rocky relationship with advertisers right now.

Musk has been talking a lot about creators (including mentioning a revenue share earlier this week). One of Blue's advantages is the ability to upload longer, higher-quality videos, and the company recently added a view count to tweets. (Interestingly, in the Android version of the app, they're labeled "verified views.")

While some Twitter users have had options to monetize the platform for a while through its Tips and Super Follows features, an ad revenue sharing program would be new for the site. It would also help Twitter compete with platforms like YouTube, Instagram and TikTok, which have systems for paying creators directly, either through funds or split ads.

For example, is anything more than a blue account required to start receiving a share of ad revenue? YouTube has specific requirements for participation and the number of followers you must meet to join its partner program. Here are some other questions that, so far, don't seem to have answers due to the lack of support documentation for the feature that is supposed to be released today:

How will they pay you? Do you have to link your bank account to Twitter?

What cut will Twitter take?

Does Twitter have a mechanism to demonetize certain tweets or investigate who gets the revenue share?