Hajra Naz
X, the social media platform now owned by Elon Musk’s SpaceX, is overhauling how it pays creators. This marks a significant shift in the platform’s monetization strategy.
X announced the change directly. The company said it will wind down its existing Revenue Sharing program. In its place, X is introducing a new program called Original Content Rewards. X will immediately stop accepting new participants into the old program. Current participants, however, will keep earning under the existing system through September 7.
The transition begins shortly after that date. Starting September 8, creators will be able to apply for the new program. Some requirements will stay the same. Participants still need an active Premium subscription. There are also qualifying thresholds to meet.
Creators need at least 500 verified followers. They also need 500,000 Home Timeline impressions from verified users within 90 days. Despite these familiar requirements, the biggest shift is clear: originality is now the central focus.
So what actually counts as original content? X outlined several examples. That includes original reporting and analysis. It also includes photos and videos the poster created themselves. Memes and graphics designed by the user count as well.
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Commentary is included too, but with a caveat. X said that if a creator’s content regularly relies on material made by others, that creator will need to add meaningful original value for it to qualify under the new guidelines.
X also gave clear examples of content that won’t qualify. That includes posts copied directly from another account. It also includes content downloaded from one account and re-uploaded under a different one. Simply reposting content without meaningful transformation won’t count either.
This announcement is part of a longer pattern. X has made repeated attempts to reform its Revenue Sharing program over time. Back in April, for example, the company reduced payments going to aggregator accounts and so-called “clickbait” accounts. These reform efforts haven’t always gone smoothly, though.
Popular accounts benefiting from the existing system have pushed back multiple times. In one notable case, Musk himself reversed part of an earlier change after facing significant backlash. That reversal gave more weight to a creator’s local audience when calculating payouts.
Read More: Meta Launches New Features to Support Original Creators
Allegra Jacchia, who works at X, addressed the reasoning behind this latest overhaul in a post. She said the existing program had reached a point where its incentives were misaligned. According to Jacchia, creators should be focused on adding genuinely new content to the platform, not on maximizing their payouts under the old system.
She explained why X chose to rebuild the program from scratch. The team could have kept adding more rules and exceptions to patch the old system, she said. Instead, X decided a cleaner approach made more sense. The company wanted a program designed from day one specifically to reward originality.
Jacchia also indicated this isn’t the final version of the program. She said X plans to keep refining it going forward. That includes improving its underlying models and gradually raising the bar over time.
