Have you had your eye on an old Twitter/X @ handle that someone else picked up? It would be particularly painful if they're not using it and are effectively squatting on the handle. Turns out, Elon Musk's X now wants to give you a way to buy such handles.
A new report highlights that X now has an internal team dedicated to selling old and unused handles to those who may want to purchase them. Keep in mind, though, that the price to buy one could be as high as $50,000 or more.
Get ready to spend the big bucks on your favorite handle
Forbes has seen emails from a team inside X, called the @Handle Team, that's working on a handle market place to sell old account names that are no longer in use by those who registered them. It points out that in some cases, the team has sent email solicitations to people who may be interested in purchasing those handles to pay a flat fee of $50,000 to start the purchase process.
It's pertinent to note that this $50,000 fee will be pocketed by X. What the holder of that unused handle decides to charge for it would be separate so your cost to acquire your favorite handle could be much higher. The report does make it seem that the fee may not be $50,000 in all cases, so perhaps it will vary based on the desirability and uniqueness of the handle.
It's no surprise that there's now a full-fledged team at X working on this. X owner Elon Musk had said last year that a large number of handles were taken up by bots and trolls and that the company would eventually start freeing them up.
