Elon Musk's X launches 'handle marketplace' for selling inactive account names,  $50,000 flat fee: Report

Elon Musk's X has reportedly initiated the sale of user accounts that are no longer in use. They are asking for a flat fee of $50,000 to facilitate the purchase. Back in November 2022, the new owner of Twitter had unveiled plans to implement such a program in the near future. Musk, the billionaire behind this initiative, cited the prevalence of "bots and trolls" occupying numerous handles and announced his intention to "free them up next month."

In response to this, a follower proposed the concept of a "Handle Marketplace" where individuals could exchange and sell their accounts to one another.

Recently, Forbes uncovered emails indicating that a team within X, known as the @Handle Team, is actively working on creating a "handle marketplace for the purchase of account names left unused by the people who originally registered them."

The report revealed that X has sent solicitations to potential buyers, requesting a fixed fee of $50,000 to initiate the account purchase. These emails were sent by active X employees, who mentioned that the company had made recent updates to its @handle guidelines, procedures, and fees.

Neither Musk nor X has provided an official comment on this report yet.

Earlier reports this year had suggested that Musk had plans to liberate up to 1.5 billion usernames in the near future. In May, X had already begun the process of removing inactive accounts from its platform. During this time, X's valuation had dipped to $19 billion, which is less than half of the $44 billion price Musk paid for the social media platform last year.

X's CEO, Linda Yaccarino, declared last month that the company is on track to become profitable by early 2024. She also noted that the platform now boasts 200-250 million daily active users, with around 1,700 advertisers having returned to the platform.

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