X (formerly Twitter) has increased its Premium subscription price by nearly 40%, raising the monthly cost from $16 to $22 in the United States. The annual subscription has also jumped from $168 to $229, effective December 21.

Similar price increases have been implemented across European countries, with rates rising from €16 to €21 in France, Germany, and Spain. Existing subscribers will maintain their current pricing until January 20, while new subscribers will pay the increased rates immediately.

The price hike is designed to strengthen creator payouts and help address ongoing legal challenges, including a $250 million copyright infringement lawsuit filed by 17 music publishers in 2023. The lawsuit covers approximately 1,700 songs and seeks damages of up to $150,000 per infringed work.

Key changes to X Premium include:

• Complete ad-free experience
• Enhanced creator revenue sharing
• Priority support
• Access to trend monitoring tools
• Increased limits on Grok AI models

The basic subscription tier remains unchanged. This marks the largest price increase since Elon Musk's $44 billion acquisition of the platform in 2022. Prior to Musk's takeover, Twitter was in licensing negotiations with major music publishers Universal, Sony, and Warner, but these discussions have since stalled.

The National Music Publishers' Association reports alerting X to nearly 300,000 tweets containing infringing music since December 2021, with the platform largely failing to remove the violating content.

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