When it comes to paying content creators, YouTube may be the platform of choice for many top names. This could be based on transparent and consistent payments, something that X owner Elon Musk recently verified.
Elon Musk Praises YouTube
It may not be every day that the owner of a competing company offers praise and says that you are the best at doing something, but that's exactly what Musk did when conversing with X Head of Product Nikita Bier on the platform.
Musk recently responded to a post from Bier that the X Head of Product made on Sept. 29.
Bier originally said that X would be making some "small upgrades for power users" and later answered a question from a user about payments for creators on the platform.
"At this point, I think creator payouts does more harm than good – and we need to off-ramp to a different system," Bier tweeted.
Weeks later, Musk responded to Bier.
"No, the issue is that we are underpaying and not allocating payment accurately enough. YouTube does a much better job," Musk tweeted.
The praise for the Alphabet Inc (NASDAQ:GOOG) (NASDAQ:GOOGL) video platform could prompt changes for X's payouts to content creators, but could also backfire with creators on X now being told that they could be making more if they post content on YouTube.
The exchange with Bier has also prompted Polymarket to create a prediction market for whether Bier will be out as the head of Product at X by the end of 2025.
The odds for Bier's exit were over 50% early Thursday after Musk's post, but have fallen to 28% at the time of writing.
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YouTube Vs. X Payouts
The comments from Musk amplify a lengthy debate over which social media platforms are best for content creators, coming after X rolled out its advertising revenue share program in 2023.
Content creators on X have said that the payouts on the platform are inconsistent.
Some creators have posted the same content on both platforms and showed the results with YouTube often times providing much higher payments.
MrBeast, who is the most followed person on YouTube, conducted an experiment in 2024 where he uploaded videos to X that he had previously released on YouTube.
“My first X video made over $250,000! But it’s a bit of a façade. Advertisers saw the attention it was getting and bought ads on my video (I think) and thus my revenue per view is prob higher than what you’d experience," MrBeast tweeted previously about the experiment.
A screenshot shared by MrBeast reveals the tweet had 156,685,975 impressions and earned $263,665 in revenue.
While users asked MrBeast how much the same video made when posted on YouTube, he did not answer, but he has said that he made significantly more on YouTube than X.
MrBeast donated the shared ad revenue he made from the X experiment with his followers on the platform.
Since acquiring X (formerly Twitter) for $44 billion, Musk has worked diligently to enhance user metrics and share revenue with users. The latest post from Musk suggesting that users are underpaid could indicate that things will change in the future.
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