What do we know about “X”, the superapp that Elon Musk wants to launch after the purchase of Twitter

After months of battle to try to cancel the purchase of Twitter for 43,000 million dollarstime in which the foundations have been laid for the trial that will begin on October 17, Elon Musk has decided to back down. The soap opera in which the sale of one of the most influential social networks of today has become has a new chapterand comes with some interesting points to discuss.

In a future scenario with Elon Musk as the owner of Twitter, his promises to “unlock the tremendous potential” that the social network has They are back on the table. And it was the businessman himself who has not been slow to affirm that the completion of the operation “will speed up the creation of X, the all-in-one application”. What does Musk mean by this? Previous messages from him can help us understand him.

WeChat as a frame of reference for the new Twitter

Let’s decipher this latest Tweet from Elon Musk. We know that “X” is one of the entrepreneur’s favorite letters. He used it as a name on an online bank he co-founded in 1999, he didn’t forget to include it in the short name of Space Exploration Technologies Corp (SpaceX), and he even bought the “X.com” domain from PayPal in 2007. Thus, it would not be surprising that advertise an app called simply “X” after the purchase of Twitter.

But what would such an application include? A question and answer session between Elon Musk and Twitter employees carried out last June sheds a little light on the matter. In the meeting, held virtually, the businessman did not hesitate to buy the potential of Twitter with WeChat. “I think it would be important to try to include as much of the country as possible, as much of the world as possible,” she said.

wechattaking out of the equation the measures imposed by the Chinese government to limit freedom of expression, it is the clearest model of a “super application” or “super app”. Model that has allowed it to reach more than 1,200 million users (Twitter has “only” 396 million users) since it was launched in 2011 and be present in many aspects of the daily lives of Chinese citizens.

The company behind WeChat, Tencent, has long since begun a journey to add other features besides the social component of the app. The service, which originally allowed you to chat and make calls, in the best WhatsApp style, today allows you to order a taxi or food delivery, pay water or gas bills, send money, make a medical appointment, play online and even file for a divorce.

Twitter Marten Bjork Fvtg38cjc K Unsplash

All of this is made possible by a scheme of “micro-apps” running inside the app and Tencent’s fintech muscle. If we take this example to our reality, it would be a single application that would integrate individual applications such as Facebook, Twitter, Uber, Instagram and Bizum. “Basically WeChat is used in China because it is very useful for daily life, and I think we can achieve that,” Musk added in the aforementioned meeting with Twitter employees.

“Basically WeChat is used in China because it is very useful for daily life, and I think we can achieve that”, Elon Musk.

As we can see, Elon Musk seems quite convinced to include Twitter in a super application, presumably called “X”, but little else we know about his ideas. The truth is that, at the moment, there is no app comparable to WeChat in the WestAlthough if it decides to choose this path, Twitter will not be alone because other technological giants have also begun to be interested in this concept.

Within the next few years we could see how applications begin a race to concentrate more and more services. WhatsApp, for example, already allows you to make payments, send money and make purchases in some countries.. Uber no longer just wants to be the “taxis” app and is contemplating a multimodal approach. And so, others like Facebook, Instagram and TikTok could jump on this bandwagon. The question is: does Elon Musk want to lead in this universe?

In time we will know what happens with all this. The next step, for now, is to close the purchase. At the time of this writing, the parties have not announced a settlement, so the five-day trial scheduled to begin on October 17 remains on. according to The Wall Street Journal. In case of reaching an agreement and not continuing with the trial, the operation could be closely supervised by the justice system.

Pictures | Twitter | canvas | Marten Björk

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What do we know about “X”, the superapp that Elon Musk wants to launch after the purchase of Twitter