Elon Musk teases ‘higher priced’ Twitter Blue subscription with no ads

Elon Musk says Twitter will roll out a new “higher priced” Blue subscription that doesn’t show ads on the platform. The current $7.99 per month Twitter Blue subscription promises 50 percent fewer ads when compared to “non-verified people,” although this feature hasn’t been rolled out yet.

We still don’t know how much the ad-free tier will cost or when it might launch, and Twitter no longer has a communications team to contact. The existing Blue subscription comes with perks like a blue “verified” checkmark, the ability to undo tweets, a way to upload longer 1080p videos, a reader mode for threads, and prioritized ranking in conversations.

This comes just days after Twitter quietly put a ban on third-party clients, like Tweetbot and Twitterrific. On Thursday, the company updated its developer agreement to note that developers can’t use Twitter’s API to “create or attempt to create a substitute or similar service or product to the Twitter Applications.”

As my colleague Mitchell Clark points out, while some developers pay to access Twitter’s API, Twitter doesn’t show ads through it, preventing the company from earning any ad revenue. Plus, people who use third-party apps might not see a need to purchase a Twitter Blue subscription, as some of them already offer an enhanced, (and sometimes ad-free) Twitter experience.