Elon Musk will reportedly force brands to spend at least $1,000 on Twitter ads every month — or lose their gold checkmark

• Twitter, now known as X, is ramping up efforts to revive its ads business.
• The company will soon require brands to spend $1,000 monthly on ads to keep verification, per WSJ.
• Owner Elon Musk said earlier this month that Twitter had seen a roughly 50% drop in ad revenue.

Twitter's ads business is in trouble  — and the company is reportedly threatening to strip brands of verification if they don't pitch in to help.

Starting August 7, the platform, now called X, will strip brands of their gold checkmark verification if they haven't spent at least $1,000 on ads in the previous 30 days or $6,000 in the past 180 days, The Wall Street Journal reported Tuesday, citing an email sent to advertisers that it viewed.

Introduced in December's Twitter Blue relaunch, Twitter's gold checkmark designates verified business accounts.

Twitter reportedly charges businesses $1,000 monthly for the checkmark, but the company waived the fee for its top 500 biggest ad clients and the 10,000 most-followed company, brand, and organization accounts.

Some companies, like The New York Times, refused to pay the fee but still kept their checkmarks, while others, like Air France, lost their checks. 

It's unclear if the new mandated $1,000 ad spend is in addition to the $1,000 monthly fee that the social platform requires some companies to pay for their checkmark.

The forthcoming rule comes as ad revenue has fallen at the social media site.

Earlier this month, Musk said that the company had suffered a roughly 50% decrease in ad revenue and had negative cash flow. When Musk initially took over, half of  Twitter's top 100 advertisers reportedly left the platform. In December 2022, Twitter's revenue fell 40% compared with the same month in 2021.

Musk's decision in May to appoint Linda Yaccarino as CEO reflected the company's ongoing efforts to turn its ad slump around. Yaccarino was the chair of advertising sales and client partnerships at NBCUniversal before joining Twitter.

In another attempt to revive ad revenue, the company has offered discounted rates to some advertisers, the Journal reported.

Twitter did not immediately respond to a request for comment.