Musings From Abroad

Elon Musk goes tough on revenue drive, says government, businesses to pay for using Twitter

Published

3 years ago

May 4, 2022

Billionaire owner of electric car manufacturer, Tesla, Elon Musk, on Tuesday, said government and commercial businesses using Twitter will have to pay for it in a bid to drive revenue and make the social media company he acquired last week become profitable.

In a tweet, Musk wrote that the company will consider charging a “slight” fee for commercial and government users for using the platform.

According to Musk, the fee which will not be very significant, will be part of his push to reposition the company and grow its revenue which has made it lag behind major social media rivals like Facebook and Google.

Twitter will always be free for casual users, but maybe a slight cost for commercial/government users

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) May 3, 2022

“Twitter will always be free for casual users, but maybe a slight cost for commercial/government users.

“Some revenue is better than none!” Musk wrote on Twitter while announcing the measure.

This will not be the first time the world’s richest man would be mulling on measures that would place the platform as a profitable business model.

Last week, a few days after completing the take over of Twitter, Musk said he would develop new ways to monetise tweets and crack down on executive pay to slash costs at the social media platform company.

He added that he planned to develop features to grow business revenue, including new ways to make money out of tweets that contain important information or go viral.

On Monday, at the annual Met Gala held in New York, Musk said the reach of Twitter was currently only “niche” without equal revenue to go with it and that he would want a much bigger percentage of the United States to be on the platform.

He said he wanted to make Twitter less ‘niche’ and more revenue driven as much as possible just as he has been able to Tesla a very profitable company.

After completing the deal to buy Twitter for $44 billion, Musk had said he wanted to enhance the platform with new features, make the algorithms open source to increase trust, defeat spam bots, and authenticate all humans.

Related Topics:Elon Musk Featured Revenue Twitter

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Musings From Abroad

Seeking to expand ties in Africa, Indonesia’s Prabowo attends D-8 economic meeting in Egypt

Published

1 day ago

December 18, 2024

Ifeoluwa Dada

According to the government, Indonesian President, Prabowo Subianto, travelled to Egypt on Tuesday to attend meetings of the D-8 Organisation for Economic Cooperation, a group of eight significant Muslim developing nations.

To enhance collaboration between the nations spanning from Southeast Asia to Africa, the D-8 was formed in 1997 and consists of Bangladesh, Egypt, Indonesia, Iran, Malaysia, Nigeria, Pakistan, and Turkey. Beginning in January 2026, Indonesia will serve as the group’s chair.

Prabowo said that he would meet with Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, the president of Egypt.

“Egypt is our close friend, our strategic partner and an important country in the Middle East,” he said before his departure, adding he would also meet the Egyptian business community.

He would go to Malaysia from Egypt and then return to Indonesia.

Since taking office in October, Prabowo has stated that his administration will uphold Indonesia’s long-standing non-alignment foreign policy.

Since winning the presidency earlier this year, he has been to more than 20 nations, including China, the US, Japan, and Russia.

Musings From Abroad

UN warns Sudan rebels may be getting weapons in Chad from UAE cargo planes

Published

5 days ago

December 14, 2024

Ifeoluwa Dada

Flight data and satellite photographs reveal that dozens of UAE cargo planes have landed at a small Chad airstrip since Sudan’s civil war began last year, which some U.N. experts and diplomats fear is being used to transport guns into the fight.

At least 86 UAE planes have landed at Amdjarass airfield in eastern Chad since the war started in April 2023.

According to flight data and business records examined by Reuters, three-quarters of them were operated by airlines accused by the U.N. of transporting Emirati weaponry to a Libyan warlord.

The UAE, a key Western partner in the Middle East, insists it sends Sudan aid through Chad, not armaments.

The UAE denied “credible” allegations that it was supplying Sudan’s Rapid Support Forces (RSF), a paramilitary group fighting the Sudanese army in a conflict that has killed tens of thousands and displaced millions, via the Chad airstrip in January.

Reuters uncovered footage from Amdjarass this year, revealing two pallets loaded with khaki containers, some labelled with the UAE flag, on the tarmac.

Reuters is obscuring the footage’s date and provenance for fear of reprisals.

Three weapons specialists, two of whom were U.N. inspectors, said the containers were unlikely to convey humanitarian material, generally bundled in cardboard boxes coated in plastic and stacked high on pallets due to its lightweight. The footage shows metal containers packed low on pallets.

One U.N. weapons inspector said the contents were “highly probably ammunition or weapons, based on the design and colour of boxes,” but requested anonymity due to the sensitivity of the information.

He stated that right-hand pallet cases are long and slender, suggesting weaponry.

Reuters could not independently verify the containers’ contents. The filming date is being withheld to protect the source.

The UAE government told Reuters it has deployed 159 relief planes with more than 10,000 tonnes of food and medical assistance to feed its Amdjarass field hospital.

“We firmly reject the baseless and unfounded claims regarding the provision of arms and military equipment to any warring party since the beginning of the conflict,” the statement said.

To counter Islamist militants, the oil-rich Gulf kingdom has interfered in crises from Yemen to Libya since the Arab Spring protests of 2011. The UAE views Muslim Brotherhood and other groups as threats to internal stability.

In Sudan’s army, Islamists affiliated with deposed President Omar al-Bashir have long held power.

Senior RSF official Brigadier General Omar Hamdan rejected foreign help. He told Nairobi media on Nov. 18 that Sudanese firms made its guns and ammunition. The RSF declined to comment on this topic.