After Elon Musk’s February announcement on Twitter ad revenue, Twitter Blue subscribers are finally going to receive payouts.

In an email sent to Tom Warren of The Verge, the creator’s share of the ad revenue is coming in the next 72 hours. The Twitter Monetization program, available to Twitter Blue subscribers, derives its revenue from ads placed in their reply threads. According to Twitter, the program “is part of our effort to help people earn a living directly on Twitter.”

Warren received $9,546 in his first payout, according to his tweet, and Journalist Brian Krassenstein, with around 750k followers, received almost $25,000. T(w)itter Daily New, on the other hand, with a follower count of more than 150,000, received a whopping $107,000 in its first payout. Musk said that the total amount of payout to creators is around $5 million. 

With this incentivization of tweets, creators would encourage their followers to reply to their threads, meaning controversial takes could often garner significant engagement. As Farzad Mesbahi tweeted, “The more haters you have in your replies the more money you’ll make on Twitter.” Musk replied, “Poetic justice.”

How the ad revenue is calculated

Twitter hasn’t specified how the ad revenue is calculated, but the company states that creators should have at least 5 million impressions on tweets over the past three months. More creators will be eligible to apply for the program later this month. 

The company has limitations on who can monetize their tweets, such as accounts posting sexual content, pyramid schemes, violence, drugs, alcohol, and many more. Creators also can’t monetize content that they do not own. 

A move in the midst of Threads’ launch 

Twitter’s monetization program was introduced during challenging times for the company, with the launch of Threads—an alternative billed as a “Twitter killer”—which now boasts over 100 million accounts. Recently, the company threatened to sue Meta for alleged intellectual property misappropriation and for hiring former Twitter employees on its Threads development team.