MTA Will Use Twitter For Service Alerts After All
Elon Musk backed down from his ultimatum to make MTA pay up to $500,000 dollars a year to use the platform for alerts.
| 06 May 2023 | 02:44
When your subway or railroad train is running late, you’ll once again be able to receive alerts via Twitter. The tech giant blinked when the MTA said it could not afford to pay the $500,000 the company sought. Photo: MTA
In an abrupt reversal, Twitter has backed down from requiring the MTA to buy into a tiered payment system to use its platform for alerts, according to a statement by Acting Chief Customer Officer Shanifah Rieara. The MTA indicated that the annual fee of up to half-a-million dollars was money it did not have, and stopped posting on Twitter at the end of April. After May 4th’s announcement, the MTA resumed posting at 4:00 PM EDT and was personally welcomed back to the platform in a post by Musk.
In her statement, Rieara clarified: “The MTA informed Twitter senior management that it would not pay to provide the public with critical service information. Twitter got the message and reversed its plan to charge the MTA more than half a million dollars per year.” She also added that the MTA would be monitoring Twitter to ensure that “reliability on the platform will be guaranteed through technological means,” in order to provide riders with the best possible alerts service.