The days of Twitter being completely free for everyone may be over.

The company might introduce a "slight" fee for commercial and government users, said Twitter's soon-to-be new owner, rich guy Elon Musk.

Tweet may have been deleted

Musk tweeted that in the context of a cryptic tweet about Freemasons.

"Ultimately, the downfall of the Freemasons was giving away their stonecutting services for nothing," he tweeted. "Some revenue is better than none," he added.

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In April, Musk suggested making some changes to Twitter's experimental subscription service, Twitter Blue. "Everyone who signs up for Twitter Blue (ie pays $3/month) should get an authentication checkmark," he tweeted, but deleted the tweet shortly afterwards.

However, imposing a fee to use Twitter for any subset of users would be a new step for the platform which, like Facebook, long maintained the idea that the service should be free for everyone and money should be made through advertising.

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While we're not sure that Twitter should be basing its business model on anything related to the Freemasons, Musk's tweet is another sign that changes are definitely coming to Twitter. Musk said that his acquisition of Twitter, which he's largely financing himself, is not about making money. But at the same time, he told the banks that are helping him finance the deal that he'll slash executive and board salaries, as well as come up with new ways to monetize tweets, in order to make the service more profitable.

TopicsTwitterElon Musk