Twitter History X: Musk’s obsession goes back to PayPal, and it could lead to his WeChat competitor

While the public-facing branding is just changing now, the X connection to the social media platform isn’t new.

Back in April, Twitter ceased being an independent company. According to documents filed in California in early April, it was merged into a shell corporation called X Corp.

Around the same time, Musk launched another X-named business — xAI. While documents regarding the new venture were filed in Nevada in March, it was only officially announced in July.

Very little is known about the company at this stage, with its tagline stating its goal is to “understand the true nature of the universe”. However, there are rumours that it will be a rival to OpenAI, which Musk helped launch before leaving in 2018. He has since openly questioned the for-profit direction OpenAI has gone in.

Musk’s obsession with X goes back to PayPal

X Corp and xAI are only the latest iterations of Musk’s decades-long obsession with the letter — one that has (infiltrated) several of his many businesses.

Musk even pointed to this during his tweet session over the weekend.

“Not sure what subtle clues gave it way [sic], but I like the letter X,” Musk said.

One of the more obvious companies is SpaceX — Musk’s spacecraft manufacturing business that launched back in 2002. In addition to rockets, it also operates the low-orbit Starlink satellite network which recently announced partnerships with Telstra and Optus.

Musk has also named one of his Tesla vehicles after the letter — the Model X. It’s also worth noting that all of the Tesla car models produced after the original Roadster (and not including the Cybertruck), have been named after the letters — S, X, Y. Thank you, Elon.

Musk and his former partner, Grimes, also infamously named their first child together X Æ A-12. The news broke the internet for a short time, with people wondering how to actually pronounce the name. In an appearance on The Joe Rogan Experience, he confirmed the pronunciation as ‘X-Ash-A-12’.

The lesser-known, and older, X connection can actually be found in PayPal. It finds its origins in X.com — an online financial services and e-mail payment company co-founded by Musk in 1999.

By 2000 the company had merged with competitor Confinity, which had its own money transfer service, and eventually the entire business was renamed to PayPal.

Back in 2017, Musk bought the x.com domain from PayPal for ‘sentimental reasons’, which is why he has been able to use it to redirect to twitter.com.

Will X turn Twitter into the US version of WeChat?

It seems the impending logo change will be the first big step towards a total rebrand for Twitter — name and all.

Twitter CEO Linda Yaccarino, took to the platform to explain the future of X. In a post retweeted by Musk, Yaccarino said that X will be a state for “unlimited interactivity” that will include payments, a global marketplace and more.

X is the future state of unlimited interactivity – centered in audio, video, messaging, payments/banking – creating a global marketplace for ideas, goods, services, and opportunities. Powered by AI, X will connect us all in ways we’re just beginning to imagine.

— Linda Yaccarino (@lindayaX) July 23, 2023

And this isn’t he first time this potential future for Twitter has been floated.

In May of 2022, Musk said made an appearance on the All-In podcast, saying that the USA needed an ‘everything app’.

“If you’re in China, you kind of live on WeChat,” Musk said.

“It does everything. It’s sort of like Twitter, plus PayPal, plus a whole bunch of things 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.”

Interestingly, this was before he had actually purchased Twitter.

“It’s either convert Twitter to that, or start something new. It does need to happen somehow,” Musk said.

Musk conveyed this message again in October, saying that his acquisition of Twitter would accelerate “creating X, the everything app”.

At the present time, WeChat has roughly 1.6 billion monthly active users. Comparatively, Twitter has 330 million. To be fair, Twitter (Or X) is a long way from doing everything that WeChat can.

The mammoth platform allows users to message, broadcast, share photos and videos, send live locations, make mobile payments and so much more.

But despite his aspirations for Twitter, Musk’s ability to create the X app of his dreams should be questioned. While he does have a string of successful businesses under his belt — things haven’t been going so well at Twitter.

Things have been unpleasant and messy since he took over in late-2022. Features have broken or been backflipped on. Others have been paywalled.

A WeChat revolution for the platform is going to take resources and money — and Twitter is short on both.

In addition to firing around 7500 employees, Twitter has serious money problems. The company has US$1 billion in annual debt repayment thanks to the US$13 billion in debt funding Musk took on to buy the business. And let’s not forget that he had to be sued into the acquisition in the first place.

Musk also confirmed earlier this month that Twitter had seen a 50% drop in advertising revenue.