Musk pauses X plan to weight creator payouts by region

Elon Musk paused X’s plan to weight creator payouts by home region after pushback from international English-language creators. The change had been scheduled to roll out Thursday. Existing revenue-sharing rules remain in place.

X’s head of product, Nikita Bier, had outlined an update that would give more weight to impressions from a creator’s home country. The stated goal was to discourage foreign accounts from targeting U.S. and Japanese audiences.

Creators across Europe, Africa and smaller markets warned the weighting would penalize legitimate accounts that publish in English for global audiences. A France-based creator, Déborah, who reports that 43% of her audience is in the U.S., urged X to reconsider, writing, “You’re also penalizing a number of accounts that use the international language without any ill intent.” A user in Portugal noted that some countries have too few local users to generate meaningful revenue.

In replies to users, Bier wrote that X welcomes local content but would not route payments overseas for American political commentary.

Under the current model, X pays creators roughly $8.50 per million verified Premium impressions, with no regional adjustment. The company has doubled its revenue-sharing pool for 2026.

Creators cautioned that earnings would drop in countries such as Kenya, Nigeria and Portugal if the weighting took effect, even for accounts drawing large U.S. audiences, because local ad markets are smaller.

Many crypto-focused accounts publish in English for global audiences. The pause keeps payout terms the same for those accounts.

X has indicated it still plans to curb spam and coordinated engagement farming. Executives have suggested a narrower policy could return that targets bad actors without cutting earnings for legitimate global creators.

The debate did not start with creator payouts. The Coinomist previously wrote about the rise of bots on X, showing how the platform’s efforts to limit abuse can quickly spill over into policies that affect real users and creators.