The platform once known as Twitter has decided that this is the year of the creator, a designation that sounds rather like those proclamations municipalities make about endangered species or underappreciated vegetables.
SpaceXAI, the corporate entity that emerged when xAI merged with the aerospace manufacturer SpaceX in 2026, announced changes to its creator monetization program this week, hoping to attract the sort of talent that currently prefers to ply its trade elsewhere. The new model, which begins Sept. 8, will emphasize what the company calls quality over quantity — a phrase that suggests the previous approach may have rewarded neither.
"The goal is to reward the creators that bring new ideas and new content," said Allegra Jacchia, creator product lead at SpaceXAI.
The existing program, introduced in July 2023, allowed any premium subscriber with 5 million organic impressions and 500 verified followers to earn money on the platform. This arrangement proved hospitable to what the industry calls engagement farming (a term that makes the practice sound almost agricultural and therefore wholesome, which it is not).
Media buyers and creator representatives who spoke with Digiday expressed what might charitably be called measured enthusiasm. Karissa Tuccio, executive director of social and influence at Mediassociates, said she does not typically recommend the platform for clients. Mat Micheli, chief executive of Viral Nation, said his creators have not discussed X "in multiple years."
Doug Landers, co-founder of the management agency Greenlight Group, offered a more complicated assessment. The platform remains, he said, an exceptional organizer of fandoms. "There's nothing else like it," Mr. Landers said.
The challenge for X — and it is a considerable one — is that the platform's reputation for controversy has become as fixed in the minds of advertisers as the holding company affiliations they can never quite remember. (SpaceXAI executives insist they have done "tremendous amounts of work around brand safety," a phrase that has been deployed by platforms in distress since approximately 2017.)
Monique Pintarelli, head of global advertising at xAI, acknowledged the platform's eclecticism. "You're going to hear a crazy person talking about something over there," she said, "and a person talking about the future of AI over there."
Whether advertisers will find this variety charming remains, as they say, to be seen.
Original story published in Digiday: "X creates a new revenue model for creators -- but will it actually win them over?"