Billionaire entrepreneur and tech giant Elon Musk is
rebranding Twitter as "X" – a step aligned with his long-term vision of creating a revolutionary social media platform that goes beyond the traditional concept of a social network.
The vision entails creating an "everything app," integrating messaging, e-commerce and peer-to-peer payments. His ambition is to develop a "super-app" that integrates different services and features, much like Tencent's WeChat in China. WeChat has messaging, video calls, games, photo sharing, ride-hailing, food delivery, banking and shopping, all within a single app.
Musk has expressed his admiration for WeChat and its success in China, stating that if a similar app could be achieved outside China, it would be a massive success. (Related:
Meta launches Twitter rip-off “Threads” application, immediately starts censoring users for voicing unapproved thoughts.)
"If you're in China, you kind of live on WeChat," he said. "It does everything — sort of like Twitter, plus PayPal, plus a whole bunch of things, and all rolled into one, with a great interface. It's really an excellent app, and we don't have anything like that outside of China."
His goal is to transform Twitter into a platform that offers an all-encompassing experience, combining social interactions with diverse functionalities that cater to the everyday needs of its users.
"Soon we shall bid adieu to the Twitter brand and, gradually, all the birds," Musk tweeted on his official Twitter account on July 23. Alongside the announcement, the company projected its new "X" logo on the exterior of its headquarters. In line with the rebranding, Musk revealed that posts on the platform would no longer be referred to as "tweets" but as "x's."