Elon Musk's X is offering ₹9 crore prize for best long-form article: Eligibility, rules and deadline

Elon Musk-led X is offering creators a chance to earn $1 million, or around ₹9 crore 7 lakh, for posting content that starts “conversation, breaks news and moves culture.” The new initiative by the company comes at a time when X and Grok AI have been under severe regulatory pressure after the chatbot generated non-consensual sexual deepfake images of women and children.

“We’re trying something new: we’re giving $1 million to the Top Article of the next payout period. We’re doubling down on what creators on 𝕏 do best: writing. In 2026, our goal is to recognize high-value, high-impact content that shapes conversation, breaks news and moves culture.”

“Creators, writers, journalists, thought leaders: If long-form is your craft, this is your moment to double down on 𝕏. Tell us what you want to see next in 2026,” it added.

X Top Article eligibility criteria:

The company’s $1 million article contest began at 2 PM Pacific Time (PT) on 16 January, 2026 and ends at 11:59 PM PT on 28 January, 2026. The content should not be hateful, fraudulent or manipulative.

X says the content must be original and at least 1,000 words long. The content will be judged based on Verified Home Timeline impressions and, currently, only users in the US are eligible. The company also says that content that violates X policies, or is hateful, fraudulent or manipulative, is not eligible for the Top Article contest.

Here are the complete terms listed by X for the Top Article prize:

• A submission must be the entrant’s sole original work.
• A submission cannot contain material that promotes bigotry, racism, hate speech, terrorism, bullying or harm against any group or individual, or promotes discrimination.
• Must not contain overtly sexual content.
• Cannot defame, misrepresent or contain disparaging remarks about X, its partners, its products, or other people, products or companies.
• Must not contain content that is known to be false, inaccurate or misleading.
• Must be free of plagiarism.

In order to enter the contest, users must visit X.com and publish a qualifying article.

“Submissions generated or substantially assisted by automated tools, artificial intelligence, or third parties may be disqualified unless expressly permitted by X,” the company warned.

The company also added that “submissions cannot be revised once completed and submitted. An entrant may provide multiple submissions during the contest period.”

X has also recently expanded the Articles feature to all Premium users, allowing them to publish long-form content while giving them a chance to earn revenue from the social media platform via its monetization programme.