The social network
The “tech” mogul has made many changes since he acquired the network, then called Twitter, for $44 billion in October last year.
It laid off thousands of employees, introduced a paid option, removed content moderation and restored previously suspended accounts, including that of former US President Donald Trump.
In July, he said the platform had lost about half of its advertising revenue. Bots – accounts managed by computer programs rather than humans – are widespread on X and can be used to artificially amplify political messages or stoke racial hatred.
In an interview with Mr. Musk on Monday, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu addressed the issue of anti-Semitism online and how X could “prevent the use of robots – armies of robots – to reproduce and amplify it.”
Mr. Musk responded that the company was “heading toward a small monthly payment for using System X.”
“This is the only way I can think of to combat huge armies of robots,” he said. “Because a robot costs a fraction of a cent – let’s call it a tenth of a cent – but if someone has to pay even a few dollars, a small amount, the effective cost of robots is very high.”
“And then every time you have a new bot, you have to have a new payment method.”
The conversation that was broadcast on
Musk accused the ADL of making baseless allegations of anti-Semitism that turned off advertisers and hurt his company’s sales, and threatened to sue it for billions of dollars.