Peter Sellis to Head Product at Elon Musk's X

Snapchat's inaugural product manager, Peter Sellis, announced Monday that he is assuming control of product at Elon Musk's company X, formerly Twitter. The position brings with it the creator compensation program X redesigned seven weeks ago, under which revenue is generated solely by original posts viewed by paying subscribers.

The paying viewer pool is tiny. X's Premium tier counts about 4.4 million members, while monthly users number roughly 550 million. The total sum X spends on creator compensation has never been disclosed.

Musk's Latest Product Leader Now Watches Over Creator Pay

September 8 marked X's switch from its former revenue-sharing model to the Original Content Rewards program.

Income is now tied to each "qualified impression" — a single occasion on which a Premium subscriber sees a post in the Home feed.

A creator must hold a Premium subscription, amass 500 verified followers and log 500,000 verified looks in the Home feed within three months to be eligible. In the United States, X Money, the firm's proprietary payments app, is now the destination for payouts.

I’m joining the team at @X to lead Product.

I am a huge believer in @SpaceX's mission to extend human consciousness to the stars, so it’s time to make shitposting multiplanetary.

X is the best way to find out what’s happening in the world right now and talk about it. The team…

— Peter Sellis (@petersellis) October 26, 2026

Before this move, Sellis logged seven years at Snapchat and afterwards took charge of product at Discord. In that role he supervised Nikita Bier, who previously served as X's product chief, following Discord's purchase of Bier's company.

During a podcast conversation, Sellis argued that ads are the best fit for making money from consumer apps, and he singled out Snapchat's camera monetization as one of his biggest failures.

Bier left X in August. Payments were slashed by 60% in April for accounts that share other people's news while he was still running product at X.

Advertising Revenue Keeps Sliding at X

X's parent, SpaceX, brought in $538 million in ad sales over the third quarter, an 18% year-over-year gain, per its earnings report.

The cumulative nine-month figure, however, remained 6% lower. In a single quarter of 2022, Twitter on its own generated about $1.08 billion in ad sales.

There have been no announcements from Sellis or X about altering creator compensation. YouTube, on the other hand, is set to make its creators reach a doubled view threshold in 2027. Whether the ad uptick continues under Sellis will become evident when SpaceX posts its next quarterly numbers.