KUALA LUMPUR, April 16 — Tech mogul Elon Musk has plans to charge new X (formerly Twitter) users a 'small fee' before they post on the social media platform.

Replying to a thread by X Daily News on Tuesday, Musk said the measure is necessary to prevent bot accounts from flooding the social media platform.

"Unfortunately, a small fee for new user write access is the only way to curb the relentless onslaught of bots.

"Current AI (and troll farms) can pass 'are you a bot' with ease,” Musk wrote, referring to tools like CAPTCHA.

"The onslaught of fake accounts also uses up the available namespace, so many good handles are taken as a result,” he added.

Musk, however, said that the new users will be able to post for free after three months of creating their X account.

In October 2023, X launched the "Not A Bot” programme that charged an annual fee of US$1 (RM4.75) for new X users in New Zealand and the Philippines to post, like, bookmark and reply to other posts in an attempt to reduce spam.

New users, however, were still allowed to browse X and follow other accounts for free.