- Elon Musk's Twitter is working on a paid direct messaging feature, the NYT reports.
- Twitter users would pay a few dollars to send a message to a "Very Important Tweeter," per the report.
Elon Musk's Twitter has a new feature in the works which could allow users to pay to send direct messages to high-profile accounts on the platform, The New York Times reported.
According to two people familiar with the plans and internal documents seen by The Times, Twitter is working on paid direct messaging to verified users referred to as "Very Important Tweeters."
With the new feature, users would be charged a few dollars per message when reaching out to celebrities, politicians, or other big names, per The Times. These paid direct messages would land in a separate area of the "Messages" section on Twitter, the report said. "Very Important Tweeters" would then select which paid messages they want to receive, The Times said.
When Twitter previously tested out a prototype of the paid direct messaging feature, a user sent a message to the American rapper Post Malone, asking him about his favorite songs, per the report.
The Times, citing internal documents and sources, reported that Twitter hadn't finalized a payment method yet, but the company would probably take a cut of the money from the paid messages.
The people with knowledge of the matter told The Times the company hadn't guaranteed the feature will launch and the plans were still ongoing.
It was unclear whether the feature was in development before Musk's $44 billion takeover of the company on Friday 28.
The paid message feature would form part of Musk's plan to create more paid content on Twitter, helping to bring in more money, The Times reported, citing 10 current and former staff and company documents.
Twitter didn't immediately respond to Insider's request for comment.
After Musk closed the Twitter deal, numerous changes on the platform have come to light, including an $8-a-month fee for "Twitter Blue" that he plans to overhaul, and "Paywalled Video," a feature that would charge users for video content, The Washington Post reported.