News

Twitter To Allow Publishers To Charge On A Per-Article Basis

Twitter CEO Elon Musk continues to implement changes to boost the platform’s revenue.

Published

3 years ago

May 1, 2023

twitter to allow publishers to charge on a per-article basis

Controversial Twitter CEO Elon Musk tweeted on Saturday that the social media platform would soon allow media organizations to charge users on a per-article basis. The feature can be activated with a single click, and Musk sees it as a “major win-win for both media orgs & the public”.

Rolling out next month, this platform will allow media publishers to charge users on a per article basis with one click.

This enables users who would not sign up for a monthly subscription to pay a higher per article price for when they want to read an occasional article.…

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) April 29, 2023

The new feature will be rolled out sometime this month and will enable users who don’t want to sign up for a full monthly subscription to pay to read occasional articles that interest them.

Also Read: A Guide To Digital Payment Methods In The Middle East

Musk had already announced on Friday that Twitter would take a 10% cut on content subscriptions after a pause during the first year, and that subscriptions would include long-form text and “hours-long” video.

Since taking over Twitter in October, Elon Musk has made several controversial organizational and feature changes. The social media platform removed the famous blue check mark feature and replaced it with a paid service, while the number of employees was cut by a massive 80%.

News

Microsoft Plans $10 Billion-Plus Gulf Expansion Despite Iran Conflict

Security is shaping Microsoft’s approach, from resilience work with governments to what it will say about how the money splits by country.

Published

4 days ago

September 24, 2026

Nour Nasir

Microsoft

Microsoft is planning more than $10 billion of investment across the UAE, Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Kuwait through 2030, Vice Chair and President Brad Smith told Reuters, calling the spending schedule aggressive. The Iranian conflict that began on February 28 has not persuaded the company to scale back.

“We’re sustaining all the investments we planned to make before this conflict started, and we are in fact adding to them,” Smith said. The $10 billion-plus total does not, however, show how large those additions are.

The investment, which Smith described as part of Microsoft’s continued infrastructure expansion, is aimed at cloud and AI infrastructure and at the company’s growing regional operations. Microsoft also intends to put more than $400 million into subsea and terrestrial connectivity across the Middle East by 2030.

The spending fits the region’s own ambitions too. Gulf governments have been investing heavily in AI infrastructure as part of a push to diversify their economies beyond oil and gas and turn themselves into global technology hubs. Major cloud and AI providers have been drawn in part by the land and relatively low-cost energy on offer.

Microsoft is widening its partnerships with regional AI companies, though not on identical terms. In 2024, it invested $1.5 billion in Abu Dhabi-based G42 for a minority stake, and Smith currently sits on G42’s board. Saudi Arabia’s Humain and Qatar’s Qai are working with Microsoft on selected priority areas, but Smith said the company does not plan to make capital investments in either.

Also Read: Egypt’s Mobile Wallets Are Booming, But Cash Still Has Power

The conflict has added another strand to Microsoft’s work in the region. Since it began, Smith said, the company has supported regional partners with digital resilience assessments, and it is now working with Gulf countries through a digital resilience initiative focused on preparedness and the protection of critical data.

So far, the company has given no country-by-country breakdown of the investment, citing security among other factors. So while the headline figure is public, how Microsoft divides the spending among the four countries is not.