X (formerly Twitter) has quietly updated its Ad Revenue Sharing terms for Premium subscribers, reducing the creator payout percentage from 55% to 47% of ad revenue attributed to replies and views on their content. The change was announced in a terms-of-service update posted to X's help center at 11:43 PM on a Friday โ a timing pattern critics have come to call "the Friday night news dump."
The 15% reduction in effective payout rate lands at a particularly sensitive moment. X's creator program has been one of the platform's most-cited tools for retaining high-follower accounts who might otherwise migrate to Bluesky, Threads, or other emerging competitors. At least seven accounts with over 1 million followers posted publicly within 24 hours of the change to announce they were "evaluating their X strategy."