Elon Musk wants to take on Twitch with monetized livestreams on X

Elon Musk wants to implement features on X to turn it into a live streaming platform to rival Amazon’s Twitch, reports Fortune.

The billionaire owner of X is a keen gamer and announced the move while streaming Diablo 4 on an anonymous alternative account.

Streaming Test https://t.co/iOZTWGTcKQ

— Gamer (@cyb3rgam3r420) January 4, 2024

Throughout the three-hour stream, Musk made several claims about what X is developing in the live streaming department.

How will streamers make money streaming on Twitter/X?

The tech entrepreneur said X is developing video ads: “We’re just starting to add in video ads with a similar thing to YouTube where you can skip ahead after five seconds, and we also want to reduce the amount of latency with the streaming.”

The social media platform has faced some backlash from prominent advertisers such as Disney, and Musk sees gaming and live streaming as a way to recoup some advertiser interest and attract new advertisers to the site.

“Any advertising that’s in your replies, so if you were to post a stream, any advertising that’s in the replies, you get all the previous… all the advertising revenue. So sometimes that can be quite a lot,” he said during the live stream. It is unclear at this time what this would look like precisely.

Additionally, Musk said that there are plans to add tipping and subscriptions to the platform, bringing monetization for streamers on X in line with those on other platforms. He stated that X streamers can “choose to have subscribers where it’s a paid subscriber, where you know somebody pays I know, a euro a month or something.”

The Tesla owner said that X will also be implementing controls such as subscriber-only chat, a feature shared by Twitch and YouTube streaming platforms. “You can choose how much, but it’s like, I think one of the perks is like, you can even restrict the chat, or some of the chats, to be just subscribers. So then, you know, the advantage is that somebody subscribing then, they get to chat,” said Musk.

Photo by Julian Christ on Unsplash

Ali Rees

Freelance journalist

Ali Rees is a freelance writer based in the UK. They have worked as a data and analytics consultant, a software tester, and a digital marketing and SEO specialist.

They have been a keen gamer and tech enthusiast since their childhood in are currently the Gaming and Tech editor at The Brig Newspaper. They also have a Substack where they review short video games.
During the pandemic, Ali turned their hand to live streaming and is a fan of Twitch. When not writing, Ali enjoys playing video and board games, live music, and reading. They have two cats and both of them are idiots.