X reportedly sells usernames and handles for $50,000
Users will be able to buy and sell handles on a new marketplace, according to employees.
CEO Elon Musk is facing challenges as his company X struggles to make money and keep users engaged. To improve the company’s finances, Musk has come up with a plan to sell unused account handles.
A team known as @Handle is working on creating a marketplace where people can buy usernames that were registered but never used. Some of these usernames are being sold for a fixed price of $50,000, as reported by Forbes.
Forbes reviewed emails that were sent by current X employees. However, to safeguard the privacy of the email recipients, the full contents of these emails were not made public.
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In a post dated October 2022, shortly after acquiring the platform, Elon Musk stated his intention to tackle unused accounts. He confirmed his plan to address this issue. In November 2022, he announced his goal to begin releasing unused handles starting the following month. Then, on December 9, he tweeted that Twitter would soon be freeing up the names of 1.5 billion accounts.
In May, Musk shared on Twitter that he had started deleting accounts that had remained completely inactive for several years. This action sparked requests from users who asked the company to preserve the inactive accounts of users who had passed away.
