Elon Musk teases ‘X’ app that will do ‘everything’ after he closes Twitter deal
Billionaire Elon Musk teased his plans to create a mysterious app dubbed “X” on Wednesday, hours after he reversed course and offered to buy Twitter at its original price of $44 billion.
Musk has provided few details about his plans for “X” despite hinting about its development on multiple occasions in the last year. The Tesla 🅷CEO’s latest comment indicates he sees Twitter’s platform as a key building block.
“Buying Twitter is an accelerant to creating X, the everything app,” Musk tweeted in his first public confirmation of ♎🍬the proposal.
Musk added that his acquisition of Twitte🃏r “probably accelerates X by 3 to 5 years, but I could be wrong.”
The 🍌most recent hint about Musk’s vision for an “X” app surfaced in August, when one of his Twitter followers asked if he had considered creating his own social medi✨a platform.
“X.com,” Musk replied at the time.
While Musk hasnඣ’t elaborated on what form an “X” app will take, noted that he has praised the Tencent-owned social media app WeChat, which allows users access to services ranging from payments to food delivery to ordering cars.
Conver💮sely, WeChat is widely viewed as a government surveillance tool in China that is also subject to heavy censorship, even as Musk has touted his plans to remake Twitter as a beacon of free speech.
Similar “super apps” offering more than just basic social media services are prevalent in other parts of Asia, including the Grab app in Singapore and Malaysia and Line in🌼 Japan, .
Musk expressed his affinity for WeChat and other so-called “su🍌per apps” during a town hall meeting with Twitter employees in June – referring to the Chinese platform as “great.”
At the time, the billionaire 😼touted Twit🐠ter’s development of a similar platform as key to its long-term success. WeChat boasts more than one billion users.
“There’s no WeChat movement outside 🌄of China,” Musk said, according to a transcript of the meeting . “And I think that there’s a real opportunity to create that.”
“You basically live on WeChat in China because it’s so useful and so helpful to your daily life. And I think if we could achieve that, or even🎐 close to that with Twitter, it would be an immense success,” Musk added.
The “X.com” domain name was previously linked to the eponymous financial services startup that Musk🎃 founded and later merged with PayPal. Musk reacquired rights to the website☂ in 2017.
At present, the website’s homepage displays a single letter “x” in the top-left of a blank background, wit꧃h no other links or grap🥃hics.
In personal texts as part of legaღl proceedings in the Twitter case, Musk told his brother, Kimbal, that he had “an idea for a blockchain social media system that💜 does both payments and short text messages/links like Twitter.”
“You have to pay a tiny amount to register your message on the chain, w💯hi🌄ch will cut out the vast majority of spam and bots,” Musk added. “There is no throat to choke, so free speech is guaranteed.”
Musk’s idea called for users to pay small amounts of Dogecoin in order to post – though❀ he acknowledged in subsequent texts that the idea for a blockchain-basඣed version of Twitter “isn’t possible” due to performance requirements.
While Musk hasn’t elaborated on what form an “X” app will take, noted that he has praised 💛the Tencent-owned social media app WeChat, which facilitates a variety of services ranging from payments to food delivery to ordering cars.
Conversely, WeChat is subject to heavy cens𓂃orship in China, while Musk has touted his plans to remake Twitter as a beacon of free speech.