Elon Musk Reveals Twitter Acquisition Is Just the Start of His Mysterious 'X' Plan
After first grabbing headlines on Tuesday by saying he would buy the social media giant Twitter after all, Elon Musk offered two tweets about his grander vision that the Twitter purchase could lead to.
Musk on Tuesday filed a document with the Securities and Exchange Commission revealing that he would go through with the deal to buy Twitter if a lawsuit against him in the Delaware Chancery Court is dropped.
Twitter had sued Musk after he said that he no longer wanted to go through with his $44 billion purchase of the company.
On Twitter Tuesday, Musk made his only public comment about the purchase.
“Buying Twitter is an accelerant to creating X, the everything app,” he tweeted Tuesday.
Buying Twitter is an accelerant to creating X, the everything app
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) October 4, 2022
In response to the ripples of comment this created, he later tweeted, “Twitter probably accelerates X by 3 to 5 years, but I could be wrong.”
Twitter probably accelerates X by 3 to 5 years, but I could be wrong
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) October 4, 2022
In writing about the tweets for the BBC, Zoe Kleinman, a technology editor, took a stab at decoding what “X” might be.
“He could well be eyeing something along the lines of the hugely successful Chinese app WeChat. That’s a kind of ‘super app’ which incorporates a lot of different services including messaging, social media, payments and food orders – there is as yet no such thing in the west,” Kleinman wrote.
Musk had praised WeChat in June during a town hall with Twitter employees, according to CNBC.
“And I think that there’s a real opportunity to create that,” Musk said then.
“You basically live on WeChat in China because it’s so useful and so helpful to your daily life. And I think if we could achieve that, or even close to that with Twitter, it would be an immense success.”
Meanwhile, Twitter said in a statement on Tuesday that it plans to move cautiously forward with the deal, according to The Washington Post.
The Post reported that a source, who was not named, said the company wants the judge overseeing the lawsuit it brought against Musk to oversee the process of finalizing the sale.
According to the Post, the source also said Twitter executives are still wary of Musk and fear this could be some type of maneuver and not a genuine plan to buy Twitter.
But some analysts said Musk’s offer is a signal that he understands the deal is going to go forward.
Daniel Ives, an analyst for the investment firm Wedbush Securities, wrote a note to clients saying Musk’s acceptance of the deal was a “clear sign that Musk recognized heading into Delaware Court that the chances of winning vs. Twitter board was highly unlikely and this $44 billion deal was going to be completed one way or another,” according to MarketWatch.
“Being forced to do the deal after a long and ugly court battle in Delaware was not an ideal scenario and instead accepting this path and moving forward with the deal will save a massive legal headache,” Ives wrote.
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