X Dangles $1M Creator Bounty in Desperate Bid to Catch Meta’s Threads

X just threw a Hail Mary pass. The platform, still reeling from Threads' explosive user growth, is dangling a seven-figure carrot to lure back the creators who fled.

The $1 Million Gamble

No subtlety here—just a straight-up cash grab for attention. The bounty program promises a share of a million-dollar pool to top creators, a direct counter-punch to Meta's established network effects. It's a classic 'spend money to make money' play, or in this case, 'spend money to stop the bleeding.'

Playing Catch-Up in the Attention Economy

Threads didn't just launch; it vacuumed up users by the tens of millions, leveraging Instagram's existing social graph. X's response? Open the corporate wallet. The move highlights a brutal truth in social media: community can be bought, but loyalty is priced separately. It's the tech equivalent of a company issuing new shares to cover operating losses—a short-term fix that dilutes the long-term vision.

The platform is betting big that financial incentives can rebuild the cultural moat it lost. Whether creators take the cash and run—or actually stick around to build—will determine if this is a masterstroke or just a very expensive PR stunt.

X makes million-dollar play for creator loyalty

X (formerly known as Twitter) announced a $1 million dollar bounty on their Creators account. “We’re trying something new: we’re giving $1 million to the Top Article of the next payout period.”

This was a MOVE to recognize and reward high-impact content, which shapes conversation on the platform. However, given the recent competition from Threads users see it as a move to attract more content creators and improve its standing in the content creator economy wars.

The bounty is targeted towards creators who write long FORM content and restricted to only U.S. users. Ironically, the United States is the one of the places where X is doing better than Threads, even though those numbers are not as impressive as they used to be.

In the announcement post, X said the content published must be an original work and at least 1,000 words. This isn’t the first time X has tried to use money to solve the problem. The platform had previously rolled out a monetization feature, where creators with large verified following and impressions on posts are eligible for ad revenue sharing.

While X has not formally acknowledged a user engagement competition with Threads, the timing of the bounty is not coincidental.

Threads has been refining its algorithm to create a more polished user experience, which has driven up its active users to beat X’s numbers. Additionally, the Meta owned platform has a seamless integration with Instagram, which makes it easy for creators to move their following there.

The bigger picture beyond features and monetization

X’s announcement of a bounty raises more serious questions regarding creator retention. There is a growing perception that creators are starting to diversify, even though X still has a lot of cultural significance.

Many creators now post simultaneously on X, Threads, and other platforms.

The competition between the social media platforms, however, goes beyond just features or money, but also includes user experience. Threads is positioning itself as a less toxic alternative to X, with better content moderation policies, which users find more appealing.

Elon Musk’s X positions itself as a free-speech platform, which sounds appealing to some, but also alienates others.

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