Elon Musk says X will “pause” new creator monetization rules that would base payouts on engagement from a user's local audience, after criticism from creators
TechCrunchIvan Mehta
Context & Ripple Effects
X has repeatedly adjusted the terms of its creator-revenue program, including a lowered eligibility threshold for ad-revenue sharing and a policy that tied revenue eligibility to Community Notes corrections. The latest reversal shows that payout design remains unsettled rather than a fixed platform contract.
That instability matters because creators have already cited inconsistent payments and uncertainty around X's creator strategy. Pausing a location-weighted payout formula preserves the current arrangement, but does not resolve how X intends to reward reach, engagement, and content quality.
First-order effects
Creators avoid an immediate change in how their engagement would translate into payouts, while X must revisit or defend the proposed local-audience metric.
The pause removes a near-term incentive for creators to optimize content specifically for local engagement rather than their broader audience.
Second-order effects
Repeated rule changes make creators and talent managers less able to forecast platform income, strengthening the appeal of monetization programs with clearer terms.
X's next payout-policy decision will face greater scrutiny over whether its metrics can be understood, audited, and applied consistently across creator audiences.
Third-order effects
If monetization rules continue to shift in response to creator backlash, creator-revenue sharing may evolve toward a more negotiated, trust-sensitive platform product rather than a simple engagement formula.
The broader tension is between using more granular signals to target payouts and maintaining rules that creators view as predictable and equitable.
The trend: Social platforms are moving from broad reach-based creator rewards toward more selective payout systems, forcing them to balance measurement precision against creator trust.
this was the one good idea to fix the disaster that has been the pay-to-play verified accounts system and the CEO is killing it before it can even begin wonder why? [image]
Periodic reminder that Twitter has one owner and one CEO and one head of product and they are all the same person. New from me: https://www.businessinsider.com/ ...
@jonatanpallesen For a random person signing up in France: Their very first timeline will likely include Trump ragebait and Silicon Valley chatter. We can't continue to incentivize the same kind of posts forever—and not try to expand our inventory. The network will never grow. It…
Starting Thursday, we'll be updating our revenue sharing incentives to better reward the content we want on X: We will be giving more weight to impressions from your home region—to encourage content that resonates with people in your country, in neighboring countries and people w…
Terrible for me because my audience is mostly US But I am always outside US, like now Brazil, and other times Portugal or Thailand This isn't great for digital nomads
I'm based in France, but 43% of my audience is American. I know many of us are in the same situation. To reach a wider audience, all my posts are in English, the international language. Those who cause trouble may be punished, but with this change, which will significantly [image…
I've said repeatedly that X should just terminate the revenue structure to disincentivize fake news slop directed at Americans, so this is a positive change for the app. I've been posting for free on this platform long before it did payouts and I'd love to see it go back to that.
X was going to change their monetization program to emphasize local content, for example if content is about U.S. politics to get paid it would need to be from the U.S. or a neighbor. Then Elon realized all of MAGA is based in Nigeria, Pakistan and Eastern Europe. [image]
@forgebitz Out of curiosity, I simulated the impact based on last payout: Your payout would've been +168% higher Our regional bucketing aims to be very large and includes all of Western Europe.
monetize accounts of people from the blue countries and let us communicate with each other demonetize accounts of people from the red countries and let me opt out of seeing their posts it is that easy [image]