Elon Musk's X platform's 'comeback strategy' choosing YouTube revenue calculation

In January 2026, Platform X stands at a crossroads of transformation. Recent movements—particularly the $1 million long-form content bounty campaign and the restructuring of creator revenue sharing—reveal strategic choices beyond mere marketing. What can be felt from Mask’s statements is more desperation than ambition. “The amount we pay creators is still insufficient, and revenue sharing is not properly implemented. YouTube is far superior in this regard,” Mask confesses, signaling that X is about to adopt a YouTube-style revenue model. This is not just a simple pay increase but the beginning of a structural strategy to redefine X’s future.

X Under Attack: Meta Threads’ Pursuit and Advertising Revenue Collapse

Data tells all. According to the latest aggregation by analytics firm Similarweb in early January 2026, X faces its most serious competitive situation since the acquisition. Meta’s Threads, launched in July 2023, is now X’s strongest rival.

Based on global daily active users (DAU), Threads averages 143.2 million, surpassing X’s 126.2 million. More concerning is the growth rate. X’s global DAU decreased by 11.9% year-over-year, while Threads experienced explosive growth of 37.8%. The situation is similar in Mask’s home market, the US. X has 21.2 million DAU, narrowly ahead of Threads’ 19.5 million, but the gap is rapidly closing, with Threads growing at 41.8% annually, while X declined by 18.4%.

Monthly active users (MAU) figures are also bleak. As of January 2026, Threads recorded 320 million MAU, having grown from 350 million to 400 million over 2025. Meanwhile, X’s MAU remains around 611 million, but the reality is that it has lost approximately 32 million users since Mask’s acquisition—a heavy burden.

This decline in user numbers has directly impacted X’s core revenue stream: advertising. In 2024, X’s global ad revenue was $2.5 billion, nearly halved from $4.4 billion in 2022. It is expected to recover slightly to $2.26 billion in 2025, but projections from various agencies suggest only about $2.7 billion by 2027. Meanwhile, analysts predict that Threads’ ad revenue could reach $11.3 billion in 2026, widening the gap further.

The Vicious Cycle of Subscriptions and Revenue: Why Revenue Calculation Matters

X has long expanded its subscription service (X Premium), but its contribution to revenue remains far from Mask’s initial goal of “50% of total revenue.” Despite achieving revenue growth in late 2025, the company as a whole remains in deficit.

To break this cycle, Mask has focused on adopting a YouTube-style revenue calculation model. YouTube clearly calculates creator earnings based on paid user views—specifically, the exposure generated by subscribers (Verified Home Timeline impressions). X is now adopting this approach to establish a direct link between creator compensation and the expansion of Premium subscriptions.

Specifically, X has designed a virtuous cycle:

1. High Rewards for Creators: Offering higher earnings to high-quality content creators.
2. Focus on Paid Users: Incentivizing creators to produce content that attracts Premium subscribers.
3. Transparent Revenue Calculation: Calculating revenue based on Premium view counts, like YouTube, to build trust with creators.
4. Subscription Expansion: Increasing the number of general users subscribing to Premium due to high-quality content.

This ultimately led Mask to launch a $1 million long-form content bounty campaign, aiming to attract top creators. Among Chinese social media users, jokes circulated that “Mask held a new concept writing contest in the US in 2026,” but this is not just an event—it’s a survival strategy.

The New Union of Long-Form Content and Algorithms: The War for User Dwell Time

Why specifically ‘long-form’? It directly relates to Mask’s core metric introduced into X’s recommendation algorithm: ‘regret-free user time.’ This measures the total effective time users spend engaged with specific content.

Long-form content perfectly satisfies this metric. Lengthy articles provide in-depth context and complete narratives, naturally increasing user dwell time on the platform. This is entirely different from the quick consumption of tweets or short videos. Recent algorithm updates on X have introduced ‘content format weighting,’ explicitly favoring long-form content, which requires more creative effort and has greater influence.

This is not only a reward for creators but also a pure data strategy. High-quality long-form content achieves three simultaneous effects:

• Prevent External Exit: Discourages users from leaving the platform via links.
• Increase Dwell Time: Slows scrolling and encourages deep reading.
• AI Learning Asset: Supplies large amounts of high-quality Korean and multilingual text data to Mask’s xAI Grok AI.

Mask also repeatedly emphasizes transforming X into ‘the world’s first news source’ and ‘the center of collective intelligence.’ The long-form feature is key to realizing this. Experts, eyewitnesses, and in-depth creators can share their full insights directly on the platform, rather than fragmented pieces of information.

The Paradox of a Reading Renaissance in the Digital Fatigue Era

There is an obvious paradox: while digital reading habits worldwide are fragmenting, why is Mask instead calling for a ‘renaissance’ of long-form content?

The answer lies in the data. Overall reading volume is actually increasing. Due to the influence of short-form platforms like TikTok and YouTube Shorts, younger generations, including Gen Z, prefer consuming ‘fragmented’ content for 5-10 minutes multiple times a day. However, a dynamic shift is occurring: the rise of ‘slow immersive reading.’

Users suffering from digital fatigue are increasingly craving depth, emotional connection, and meaningful content consumption. This becomes Mask’s next goal.

The Dream of a Super App: Evolving Beyond WeChat into a ‘Life Hub’

All of X’s strategies aim toward a final goal: transforming into an Everything App (Super App). Mask frequently cites WeChat as the model.

But reality is harsh. WeChat has over 1.4 billion monthly active users—more than three times X’s 557 million. This vast gap means WeChat’s ‘network effects’—where all friends, family, and daily services are integrated into one platform—are difficult for X to replicate quickly.

User stickiness also differs greatly. WeChat users average 82 minutes of daily usage, while X’s is only 30-35 minutes. The reason is clear: WeChat users can perform numerous ‘productive’ tasks—chat, payments, shopping, government services—within the platform. X, on the other hand, remains centered on news and opinions, with a repetitive ‘scroll and exit’ pattern.

Mask’s strategy is clear: X refuses to become another entertainment platform like TikTok. Instead:

1. Enhance stickiness with high-quality content: Deep long-form and professional content to significantly increase user dwell time.
2. Secure high-value users: Increase the proportion of Premium subscribers and focus on them.
3. Add lifestyle functions: Gradually integrate productive features like payments, e-commerce, and service reservations on top of content.
4. Evolve into a Super App: Ultimately, make X a platform deeply embedded in Americans’ daily lives, like WeChat.

This grand ambition is driven by the $1 million long-form content bounty, the adoption of YouTube-style revenue calculation, and the strengthening of the creator ecosystem. The deeper Mask’s anxiety, the greater his challenge.