X replaces ‘misaligned’ revenue sharing program with Original Content Rewards

TechCrunch Brand Studio

X replaces ‘misaligned’ revenue sharing program with Original Content Rewards Anthony Ha 9:34 AM PDT · August 8, 2026 X, the social media platform now owned by Elon Musk’s SpaceX, is shaking up how it pays influencers and creators.

In announcing the change , the company said it will be winding down its existing Revenue Sharing program and replacing it with something called Original Content Rewards. X will stop accepting new Revenue Sharing participants, while existing participants will continue earning money through September 7.

Then, starting on September 8, they’ll be able to apply for the new program. Participants will still need to subscribe to one of X’s Premium tiers, and there will be qualifying thresholds for follower count (500 verified followers) and impressions (500,000 Home Timeline impressions from verified users in 90 days), but it sounds like the big change is the emphasis on originality.

What counts as original content? X said it can include original reporting and analysis, photos and videos created by the poster, or memes and graphics they’ve designed themselves. Commentary also counts, but “if your content regularly incorporates material created by others, you’ll need to contribute meaningful original value for it to qualify under our original content guidelines.”

The company also included examples of posts that won’t count as original, such as those just copied over from another account, downloaded from one account and re-uploaded to your own, or reposting content “without meaningful transformation.”

This announcement follows repeated attempts by X to reform the Revenue Sharing program, for example reducing payments to aggregators and “clickbait” accounts in April . But these efforts have also prompted complaints from popular accounts profiting from the current system; Musk even reversed some of those changes (giving a creator’s local audience more weight when calculating payouts) after a backlash.

In a post about the new changes , X’s Allegra Jacchia wrote that the existing program “had reached a point where its incentives were misaligned.”

“Creators should be focused on bringing net new content to the platform instead of maximizing payouts,” she said. “We could have kept adding more rules and exceptions, but ultimately the better decision was to start fresh and build a program designed from day one to reward originality.”

Jacchia added that X be “continue refining the program, improving our models, and raising the bar over time.”

When you purchase through links in our articles, we may earn a small commission . This doesn’t affect our editorial independence.

Anthony Ha Anthony Ha is TechCrunch’s weekend editor. Previously, he worked as a tech reporter at Adweek, a senior editor at VentureBeat, a local government reporter at the Hollister Free Lance, and vice president of content at a VC firm. He lives in New York City.

You can contact or verify outreach from Anthony by emailing anthony.ha@techcrunch.com .

October 13 – 15 San Francisco Scale faster. Grow your portfolio. Gain practical expertise. No matter your goal, Disrupt can empower you. Save up to $300 toda y!

Most Popular ChatGPT brings unlimited text chats to free users Ivan Mehta

Tesla and SpaceX will invest $16.8B to start building ‘Terafab’ chip factory in Texas Sean O'Kane

Amid legal battles, Suno says it will start watermarking songs Ivan Mehta

Ford’s new electric truck, ‘Fathom,’ starts at $28,350 Sean O'Kane

Bending Spoons to buy Airtable for $1.28B Ivan Mehta

Influencers draw backlash for attending OpenAI’s first luxury trip Dominic-Madori Davis

Sequoia’s Shaun Maguire leads $1B round for nuclear startup Valar Atomics Julie Bort

X LinkedIn Facebook Instagram youTube Mastodon Threads Bluesky TechCrunch Staff Contact Us Advertise Crunchboard Jobs Site Map Terms of Service Privacy Policy RSS Terms of Use Code of Conduct OpenAI vs Apple Nous Research Space Data Centers Staya Nadella SpaceX Starship Tech Layoffs ChatGPT © 2026 TechCrunch Media LLC.