$1M creator bounty teased as Musk’s X plays catch up to Threads

In a move to light a fire under content creators and improve active users, Elon Musk’s X announced a massive $1 million bounty program. The million-dollar contest follows Threads announcing an increase in its active monthly users, which surpassed that of X for the first time. 

The announcement, which was posted on X’s Creators account, comes at a critical time as the social media platform struggles to regain its standing as the preferred platform for real-time conversations and breaking news.

According to a recent report by Cryptopolitan, Threads is seeing stronger user engagement, particularly among the younger demographic.

X makes million-dollar play for creator loyalty

X (formerly known as Twitter) announced a $1 million dollar bounty on their Creators account. “We’re trying something new: we’re giving $1 million to the Top Article of the next payout period.”

This was a move to recognize and reward high-impact content, which shapes conversation on the platform. However, given the recent competition from Threads users see it as a move to attract more content creators and improve its standing in the content creator economy wars.

The bounty is targeted towards creators who write long form content and restricted to only U.S. users. Ironically, the United States is the one of the places where X is doing better than Threads, even though those numbers are not as impressive as they used to be.

In the announcement post, X said the content published must be an original work and at least 1,000 words. This isn’t the first time X has tried to use money to solve the problem. The platform had previously rolled out a monetization feature, where creators with large verified following and impressions on posts are eligible for ad revenue sharing.

While X has not formally acknowledged a user engagement competition with Threads, the timing of the bounty is not coincidental.

Threads has been refining its algorithm to create a more polished user experience, which has driven up its active users to beat X’s numbers. Additionally, the Meta owned platform has a seamless integration with Instagram, which makes it easy for creators to move their following there.

The bigger picture beyond features and monetization

X’s announcement of a bounty raises more serious questions regarding creator retention. There is a growing perception that creators are starting to diversify, even though X still has a lot of cultural significance.

Many creators now post simultaneously on X, Threads, and other platforms.

The competition between the social media platforms, however, goes beyond just features or money, but also includes user experience. Threads is positioning itself as a less toxic alternative to X, with better content moderation policies, which users find more appealing.

Elon Musk’s X positions itself as a free-speech platform, which sounds appealing to some, but also alienates others.