Do you remember when Elon Musk happily ran around the prairies of Twitterpointing out polls every other day as well?
They were questions that all pointed in the same direction. Musk basically asked social media users if they wanted to have more freedom or not. And who, faced with this question, would not answer in the affirmative?
Everyone had understood that behind these moves there was not mere curiosity, but a precise idea: that of acquiring the platform.
And then, in April, a series of twists and turns led to the acquisition of Twitter by the South African-born tycoon. That at first, with the purchase of 9.2% of the shares, he had become the majority shareholder of the company.
All ready for the passing of the baton, therefore.
Elon Musk and Twitter: from love to court
Often, alas, love stories end up in a notary’s office.
More or less the same thing happened between Elon Musk and Twitter, but this time even before the couple could spend time together.
In fact (let’s summarize as much as possible) On July 8, Musk sent a letter to Twitter’s legal department, saying the company’s acquisition deal would be terminated.. The reason? Twitter reportedly reported a lower percentage of spam accounts than the real one. In response, Twitter sued Musk for “refusing to honor his obligations to Twitter and its shareholders.”
The social network got the expedited process, which will take place in October and will last just 5 days. It will start precisely on the 17th.
Meanwhile, Elon Musk has even accused Twitter of fraud. Etcetera etcetera.
Musk and the social X: an old passion
In all this, beyond the hot controversy, does Elon Musk still want to have his own social network? Or is the not-so-happy adventure with Twitter enough for him?
Not really. In an article from April 15, we predicted that if the Twitter acquisition was not successful, Musk would have a plan b ready. That is the creation of your own social network from scratch. Which will probably be called X.
Before going into this which is more than a rumor, we want to break away from the role of prophets. Our hypothesis was based on the fact that, in the months prior to Elon Musk’s purchase of 9.2% of the platform’s shares, the rumor that the entrepreneur would have liked to have his own social network was already in the public domain.
Musk, in fact, did not limit himself to launching polls on the chirp platform. I was also indulged in statements such as the following: “Since Twitter has become a de facto public square, the fact that it does not respect free speech undermines the principles of democracy. What should be done? Do you need to create a new platform? “
Elon Musk e il social X
In recent days, the tycoon’s desire to make a social media by himself has come back to the fore. And guess what the stage was? Sounds like a joke: Twitter.
Musk responded to a twitter from the Tesla Owners Silicon Valley account (so, one would say with a joke, probably written by himself). The question he was asked in the tweet is explicit: “Have you thought about creating your own social platform? If the Twitter deal doesn’t go through. “
And the answer, cryptic (therefore in full Musk style), was simply the addressing to the X.com domain.
What is X.com
X.com is a domain purchased by PayPal in 2017, which today leads to a website where there is almost nothing: a blank page and a small X in the upper left.
This is a well-known domain to Musk: it is in fact the financial services and online payments company that Musk founded in 1999 with Greg Kouri, thanks to the sale of Zip2, a web software company.
In 2000, X.com joined Confinity to become PayPal. Seventeen years later, in 2017, Elon Musk bought back the X.com domain from PayPal, for – in his words – “emotional reasons”.
The statements of Elon Musk
The possibility that Elon Musk creates a new social network and calls it X would also be confirmed by the words of the entrepreneur at the meeting last August 4 with Tesla shareholders.
Musk said, “Today I have a bigger vision than I thought the X Corporation might be at the time. It’s a pretty great vision and of course you could start from scratch, but I think Twitter would speed it up by three or five years. “
However, by now we have learned that Elon Musk’s convoluted language, and his often unpredictable decisions, still hold us firmly in the field of hypotheses. And they will keep us that way until the moment before any social network is fully functional.