X users may need to pay a fee to use the social media platform, Elon Musk said Monday during a talk with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Musk, who purchased the site last year, said a small monthly payment would help combat “armies of bots.”

Computer-run programs made up 11% of the site’s user base, according to a study Musk commissioned last year after agreeing to buy the site formerly known as Twitter for $44 billion.

What You Need To Know

  • X could start charging users a small monthly fee, Elon Musk said Monday

  • Musk suggested the idea during a livestreamed conversation with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on the X platform

  • Charging users a fee would help combat the prevalance of computer-operated bots on the site

  • Musk did not say what the fee might be or when it might take effect

Musk’s suggestion came in response to a question Netanyahu had asked about X’s ability to prevent bots from replicating and amplifying anti-Semitism.

“Moving to having a small monthly payment for use of the X system” was his response.

Exactly how or when X would begin charging its 550 million monthly users  – a figure Musk stated during the talk – is unclear, but many of them took to the platform to denounce the idea.

“This paid Twitter thing seems like a kid came up with it,” one user wrote. Others suggested charging X users would be “a growth opportunity for competing platforms” that result in “a slew of people giving up their accounts, only for them to be taken over by cyber squatters, impersonators and scammers.”

Musk’s suggestion of making X a fee-based service comes two months after Mark Zuckerberg launched a competing platform. The so-called Twitter-killer app, Threads had more than 100 million signups during its first week but has failed to gain traction since.

During his livestreamed conversation with Netanyahu over X, Musk said bots cost a fraction of a penny, so charging them a few dollars means they would need to use new payment methods. Artificial intelligence is also evolving and getting better at passing the captcha tests that were designed to ensure users are human, he added.

“Prioritizing posts that are written by X premium subscribers, we’re actually going to come up with a lower tier pricing. We want it to be a small amount of money,” he said.

Musk’s idea to charge X users is the latest in a series of steps he has taken to increase the site’s value. Since buying the site formerly known as Twitter, it has lost millions of users and advertiser dollars.