A super app. Able to integrate different services. Social, payments, media, ecommerce. One app for everything. Elon Musk wants to transform Twitter. And the model will be that of the Asian super apps. Tesla’s number one has revealed little else of his design. But the purchase of the company, reconfirmed yesterday in the terms agreed in April (44 billion), will be aimed at accelerating the creation of what will be called ‘X’.
“The app for everything”, as the South American entrepreneur defined it. The purchase of Twitter “will have to accelerate its creation in the next 3-5 years”. Few details. But enough to connect the dots and imagine what Tesla’s number one mind has to me.
Can Elon Musk Still Be Believed?
by Riccardo Luna
Last June, in a meeting with Twitter employees, Musk said he wanted to transform social media into a super app capable of offering various services. The creation of a super app has been a big tech regulatory ideal for years. Many have tried. Nobody succeeded. In the West at least. In Asia they have already established themselves as a natural evolution of social media.
The most popular of these apps is the Chinese WeChat. Owned by the giant Tencent, it is used by a billion people and is worth about 85 billion. To understand what WeChat does, we need to imagine a service capable of integrating what Facebook, Twitter, TikTok, PayPal and services like Uber and Deliveroo do in a single app.
To call it a social network is an understatement. WeChat is a giant of fintech, technologies applied to finance and payments; it is the main platform for enjoying shows; it is the first source of information in China; is an ideal showcase for companies. Translated: a cornucopia of assets for every sector of the digital economy. Musk might try to make Twitter something like this. At the moment the only certainty is that it will be called X. A letter that marked his luck.
Social network
What is ‘X’, the super app that Elon Musk wants to create
by Pier Luigi Pisa
So his first fintech adventure was called: X.com. An online bank. Then merged into PayPal and sold on Ebay. The three steps that made him a millionaire and laid the foundations for the birth of Tesla and SpaceX.
The purchase of Twitter will be financed by three holding companies. Musk called them ‘X Holding’ and here he imagines all his companies can converge. Five years ago Musk regained possession of the X.com domain. Is active. If you go to the address you will see a completely blank page with a small lowercase ‘x’ at the top left.
It seems to suggest the idea that we are facing a new chapter. Still to be written.