Elon Musk, the owner of Twitter, announced that the company will soon start compensating verified content creators for the advertisements they include in their replies. The first payment block will be approximately $5 million.

In a few weeks, X/Twitter will start paying creators for ads served in their replies. First block payment totals $5M.

Note, the creator must be verified and only ads served to verified users count.

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) June 9, 2023

Elon Musk, who purchased Twitter in October of last year, stated in a tweet that only verified users will be eligible for compensation, and only advertisements served to verified users will count towards the payment.

Following Elon Musk’s acquisition of Twitter, the company has faced challenges retaining advertisers due to concerns over ad placement following layoffs of thousands of employees. The announcement of payments to verified creators for ads in their replies coincides with the appointment of Linda Yaccarino, an experienced advertising executive from NBCUniversal, as Twitter’s new CEO.

According to a statement made by Musk in March, Twitter earns about 5 to 6 cents per hour of attention from users. Musk suggested that this amount could increase to 15 cents or more per hour by featuring more relevant and timely advertisements.