Array
A super app called X? A bot-free free speech haven? These are some of Elon Musk’s mysterious plans for Twitter, now that he may be buying the company after all.
After months of squabbling over the fate of their bombshell $44 billion deal, the billionaire and the bird app are essentially back to square one — if a bit worse for wear as trust and goodwill has seemed to erode on both sides.
Musk, the CEO of Tesla Motors and SpaceX and Twitter’s most high-profile user since former President Donald Trump was booted from it, has shared few concrete details about his plans for the social media platform. While he’s touted free speech and derided spam bots since agreeing to buy the company in April, what he actually wants to do about either is shrouded in mystery.
He could own one of the world’s most powerful communications platforms with 237 million daily users in a matter of weeks, though the deal is not final. The lack of clear plans for the platform are raising concern among Twitter’s constituencies, ranging from users in conflict regions where it offers an information lifeline to the company’s own employees.
“Both users and advertisers are — understandably — anxious about whether the move will fundamentally change the culture of the platform,” said Brooke Erin Duffy, a professor at Cornell University who studies social media. “And so, Musk will need to decide whether he wants to quash their concerns by retaining core features (the content moderation system, for instance) and keeping the company public — or whether he will undertake a full-scale overhaul.”
Muddling things further, on Tuesday Musk tweeted that “Buying Twitter is an accelerant to creating X, the everything app,” without further explanation.
Although Musk’s tweets and statements have been cryptic, technology analysts have speculated that Musk wants to re-create a version of China’s WeChat app that can do video chats, messaging, streaming, scan bar codes and make payments.
He gave a little more detail during Tesla’s annual shareholder meeting in August, telling the crowd at a factory near Austin, Texas, that he uses Twitter frequently and knows the product well. “I think I’ve got a good sense of where to point the engineering team with Twitter to make it radically better,” he said.
Handling payments for goods could be a key part of the app.
