Elon Musk has announced clips, donations, and monetization features will soon come to livestreamers on X

Elon Musk has recently announced that traditional livestreaming features such as clips, donations, and monetization through ad revenue will soon be added to X. The Tesla CEO has been using an alternate account on the platform to stream Diablo 4 for months as a test, and in a recent broadcast, he was asked about the future of livestreaming on the website.

Elon has been trying to get creators to use X as a platform for video sharing and content creation since acquiring it in October 2022, to varying degrees of success. The Twitter Blue and the Premium features already allow users to monetize their posts based on ad revenue and reach, and during his latest Diablo 4 stream, he affirmed that traditional livestreaming features from websites such as Twitch will soon make an appearance on X.

Elon Musk revealed that they had been trying to get YouTube-esque ads to play during videos on X, and stated that the team is also focused on reducing streaming latency. In the recent stream, he stated:

"We’re just starting to add in video ads with a similar thing to YouTube where you can skip ahead after five seconds... And we also want to reduce the amount of latency with the streaming."

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Elon Musk's ambitions for X to rival livestreaming services such as Twitch explored

Elon Musk made quite a splash with his Diablo 4 streams last year when more than a million people tuned in to watch him play Blizzard's ARPG in October. Fans and viewers had started comparing his social media platform to websites such as Twitch and YouTube then, and it seems that the richest man on Earth is set to rival them with the new features rolling out soon.

After a friend, who was playing with him on the January 4 stream, asked about donations and tips, which are standard in platforms such as YouTube and Twitch, Musk replied, saying that the feature would "definitely" be coming in the future. Furthermore, he also talked about subscription-type chats, where only subscribers on certain tiers can access features for a monthly fee:

"You can choose how much, but it’s like, I think one of the perks is like, you can even restrict the chat, or some of the chats, to be just subscribers. So then, you know, the advantage is that somebody subscribing then, they get to chat"

He also talked about streamers getting 100% of the ad revenue, which is a big departure from platforms such as Twitch and YouTube, which take a cut:

“Any advertising that’s in your replies, so if you were to post a stream, any advertising that’s in the replies, you get all the advertising revenue"

Monetization on X in its current state is not up to the mark, as per the leading YouTuber Jimmy "MrBeast," who only recently refused to upload his videos on the platform. MrBeast also noted that if he were to post his videos on Elon Musk's website, not even a billion views would cut it.

So X does have a long way to go before it becomes viable for creators to start using it as their main content hub, like YouTube or Twitch. Elon Musk's competition, Meta's Facebook Gaming, tried something similar a few years ago and even got popular creators, such as Disguised Toast, to join. Although Toast himself has returned to Twitch, many are still using the platform for gaming-related content.

That said, Elon Musk is not alone, as veteran YouTube streamer Dr DisRespect indicated his intent to collaborate with X in developing their video game streaming arm. There is certainly interest there, but without an official announcement, nothing concrete can be said about how the website will do in the future.