0:05

If somebody in San Francisco

0:08

were walking by Twitter headquarters

0:10

on Sunday night, what would they have seen?

0:13

They would have seen a giant X

0:16

being projected onto the side of the building. That

0:19

giant X signaled a big

0:22

change for Twitter. On Monday,

0:24

our colleague Tim Higgins woke up

0:26

with the rest of the world to a new logo

0:28

on Twitter.com.

0:30

In place of that familiar little blue bird was

0:33

a sleek letter X. I

0:35

think it's safe to say that a lot of people

0:38

don't have a favorite letter, but

0:40

it is clear that Elon Musk has

0:42

a huge infatuation

0:45

with the letter X, and it goes back for

0:47

many, many years.

0:50

The Model X, which was

0:52

his first sport utility vehicle for

0:55

Tesla, even one

0:57

of his children He calls X. SpaceX

1:00

too, right? Oh, SpaceX is a good example,

1:02

right? So are

1:05

we supposed to call Twitter X

1:08

now? That's the name. The

1:10

question is, will users refer

1:13

to it as X or will they refer to it as

1:15

that thing that used to be known

1:17

as Twitter? Will it be like Prince?

1:20

Yeah, the platform formerly known

1:22

as Twitter. Musk

1:27

has a lot of ambitions. He wants the

1:29

whole world to be driving electric vehicles.

1:32

He wants to get humans to Mars. And

1:34

the vision behind X is key

1:36

to yet another big idea.

1:39

Could you talk about what Musk's

1:41

plan for X is? Simply

1:44

put, everything.

1:49

Welcome to The Journal, our show about money,

1:52

business, and power. I'm Jessica

1:54

Mendoza. This is Thursday, July 27th.

2:02

Coming up on the show, Elon

2:04

Musk's vision for X.

2:14

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2:40

For years, the complaint

2:43

about Twitter has been that

2:46

it wasn't living up to its full potential. This

2:48

is a company that had

2:51

been unprofitable many of the

2:53

previous years before Elon took

2:55

it over. And so investors, when

2:58

it was a publicly traded company, there

3:00

was some tension there about what could

3:02

it do, what could it be. And that's what

3:05

Elon is making the case for is that he

3:07

is trying to get it beyond just being

3:10

that social media company, that he has this bigger,

3:13

broader vision for it.

3:15

Musk bought Twitter less than a year ago. Since

3:18

then, advertisers have pulled out, the

3:20

company's value has tanked, and

3:22

many users have left the platform.

3:25

Now Musk has turned Twitter into

3:27

X,

3:28

with plans to make it an app that does absolutely

3:31

everything.

3:32

He wants X to be the everything

3:35

app. We know from some of

3:37

his comments over the last few months

3:39

that it is a really grand ambition, really

3:42

an app that would be perhaps at the

3:44

center of your digital life.

3:46

An app like that actually already

3:49

exists in China. It's

3:51

called WeChat. Musk

3:53

praised the app in an interview on a Tesla

3:56

fan podcast. Like you live on WeChat. You

3:58

do payments, you do everything, and we don't have any... anything like WeChat

4:00

outside of China. So I was

4:03

like, my dear would be like, how about if we just

4:05

copy WeChat? What

4:08

is WeChat? Well, calling

4:10

it the everything app is a pretty good way

4:13

of describing it. It is

4:15

your digital life if you're in China. For

4:17

a lot of people, more than a billion users

4:20

use this app. And it is

4:22

a communication app. It's

4:24

a social media app. It's a commerce

4:27

app. You can hail a

4:29

taxi. You can buy things

4:31

in the physical world.

4:34

Basically,

4:34

picture one app that

4:36

is your WhatsApp, Uber, Instagram,

4:39

Amazon, and banking app all at

4:41

the same time.

4:42

That's WeChat.

4:44

For years in Silicon Valley,

4:46

there has been this dream of creating

4:48

a super app, the value of the platform,

4:51

if you will. So much more

4:54

potential than just one business, you could

4:56

potentially have so many more businesses. And

4:58

Elon thinks that there's potential

5:01

in the Twitter platform to kind of maybe

5:04

throw dynamite on the idea and really explode

5:07

faster than if it would have just started

5:09

a new, started fresh as X.

5:11

Mainly because before

5:14

Musk bought Twitter, it already had

5:16

hundreds of millions of users.

5:20

That user base is so important. That's the huge

5:22

asset that he has acquired. All

5:25

those hundreds of millions of people who

5:27

are accustomed to going there on

5:30

a regular basis, who have

5:32

built that in as a habit. And

5:35

the gamble is that he can convert them to do

5:37

even more within that app.

5:39

So Musk has the users. But

5:42

he needs to deliver the goods.

5:44

And a lot has to happen before X

5:46

can become an everything app.

5:48

One thing is beefing up X's direct

5:50

messaging features. Why

5:53

is messaging so important for

5:56

X to be successful? Messaging

5:59

is one of those things that makes a

6:01

platform sticky. You're

6:03

going to that app to maybe talk to your mom,

6:06

you're going to talk to your friends, you're

6:08

having back and forth, you're needing to check it on a regular

6:11

basis.

6:12

Earlier this year, Musk launched encrypted

6:14

messaging on X. That means people

6:17

can message each other more securely. He

6:19

hasn't quite reached that huge

6:22

safety level that some would argue needs to be done,

6:24

but they're making improvements

6:26

on that. It's clear that he's already kind of

6:28

working on that. Beyond just

6:31

text-based direct messaging, he has signaled

6:33

that there will be additional features

6:37

for personal one-on-one communication,

6:40

whether it's audio or video.

6:42

Think kind of FaceTime, if you

6:44

will, within the app.

6:47

Another component of Musk's

6:50

vision for X is content.

6:53

Sounds like he wants Twitter to be something

6:55

more than it is. Could you talk about

6:57

the kind of content he's hoping to be known for?

7:00

Well, he wants it to be entertaining. He

7:02

also wants it to be an unregrettable

7:05

time. He keeps talking about how

7:07

he wants to be measuring it at an unregrettable time.

7:10

Unregrettable

7:12

time, or as Musk puts it, unregretted

7:15

user minutes, making content on Twitter,

7:18

quote, fun and interesting and

7:20

informative and less of

7:22

a place for doom-scrolling. What

7:25

type of content would that

7:27

look like? Who are the faces and

7:30

voices that he's hoping to publish?

7:32

Well, he sees it as

7:34

a place for citizen journalism, where

7:37

the users are generating

7:40

journalism, the news,

7:42

if you will. Now, what that means

7:44

and how it plays out, people

7:47

would debate it, but in a lot of

7:49

ways, what he's doing is he's chasing content creators.

7:52

The very people who have made

7:55

TikTok or YouTube so

7:57

powerful and so successful are these people

8:00

out there creating content for these platforms.

8:04

Musk's platform has attracted at least

8:07

one big name so far. Hey,

8:10

it's Tucker Carlson. Amazingly,

8:13

as of tonight, there aren't many platforms left

8:15

that allow free speech. The

8:17

last big one remaining in the world,

8:19

the only one, is Twitter,

8:22

where we are now. The argument

8:24

that kind of the Elon Inc world

8:26

is making is that Twitter is a platform for

8:28

anybody to go and have potential to

8:31

create a voice or create an

8:33

audience. And that is what Twitter

8:36

and X is providing for somebody like Tucker

8:38

Carlson. He can control his own

8:40

kind of destiny there as long as he falls within

8:42

the rules. And so Elon has been

8:45

very vocal in saying he wants to get the likes

8:47

of Tucker Carlson, but also kind of the other

8:49

end of the political spectrum. He wants all of these

8:52

kinds of voices on there.

8:54

And you see with the kind of the

8:56

push for somebody like Tucker Carlson is

8:59

the build out of the video component. Twitter has

9:01

had video in the past, but not in the

9:03

same ways. And Elon has been focusing

9:06

on trying to improve the video capabilities

9:08

of the Twitter platform, because that's

9:10

where a lot of the money is.

9:14

There's one other feature that Musk wants

9:16

his eventual super app to have. And

9:19

it's maybe the most important to him.

9:23

Digital banking. That's

9:26

after the break.

9:44

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10:16

Earlier this year, Musk valued X

10:19

at around $20 billion. He

10:21

told his employees that with his leadership,

10:23

the company could be worth more than 10 times

10:26

that. Enter digital banking.

10:28

It's

10:31

something Musk has been thinking about for decades.

10:34

All the way back in 1999, Musk

10:36

co-founded an online bank, which later

10:38

became PayPal. But before

10:41

it became PayPal, that bank's name was

10:43

X.com.

10:46

Musk envisioned that X.com as

10:48

a one-stop shop for everything personal

10:51

finance, from checking and savings

10:53

accounts, to insurance, to mortgage

10:55

lending. Musk later lost

10:57

control of the company, but the idea of

10:59

what X.com could have been always

11:02

stuck with him.

11:02

He would talk about it for years, and

11:05

the idea of, you know, well, there's this

11:07

potential for what it could be. And as

11:10

he took over Twitter, he

11:12

starts talking about X.com again

11:14

and saying, well, the original business plan

11:17

is still there, and he thinks that he can

11:19

just take it and run with it with

11:21

Twitter.

11:24

Now that he has Twitter in hand, X

11:27

in hand, how would

11:30

digital banking on that platform work

11:32

for the user? How that might

11:34

look with inside the app, still

11:37

not quite sure. Yeah, I

11:39

can't send you $10 just

11:42

through Twitter at this point. Right.

11:45

And you can't pay for my appearance on the show. No,

11:48

I'm doing this for free.

11:53

Musk's critics say that it would be hard

11:55

for this kind of super app to get traction

11:58

in the US. already

12:00

have easy access to all kinds of goods

12:02

and services on their phones. That

12:05

wasn't the case when Musk's template, WeChat,

12:07

first launched in China. It

12:10

came at that kind of right time as the

12:12

world was changing. The rise

12:14

of the smartphone was occurring

12:16

in a place in China where there

12:19

wasn't a huge population with

12:22

laptops or desktop computers. This

12:25

wasn't a hugely computer-focused

12:28

community. And the smartphone really

12:30

became access to the internet

12:32

and the only access to the internet for a lot of people.

12:35

And there hadn't been a huge

12:38

dominant messaging app out

12:40

there. The banking was kind of still

12:43

developing online. And

12:45

they were able to take advantage of that. Whereas

12:47

if you go to the US, we have so many

12:49

different apps. Think of how many apps are on your

12:52

iPhone or your Pixel. So just

12:54

huge, huge hurdles to competition.

12:58

Some critics also question Musk's decision

13:00

to rebrand Twitter,

13:02

already a super established name, to

13:04

X.

13:05

Twitter really moved

13:08

past being just a name.

13:10

You tweet something that is a verb. To

13:13

reach that kind of level is

13:16

a lot of startups' dream. And

13:18

so for Elon to say he's

13:20

going to give up on that idea of

13:22

Twitter kind of value and that brand

13:24

and that kind of image is a big

13:26

risk and is a big step.

13:29

The letter X already has thousands of

13:31

other trademarks associated with it, according

13:33

to the US Patent and Trademark Office.

13:36

Trademark attorneys told the journal that it

13:38

could cost more than $100 million to get access

13:41

to the trademark for X around the world.

13:44

X didn't respond to requests

13:46

for comment.

13:47

For now, the platform still looks

13:50

and feels a lot like Twitter. Users

13:53

still tweet and retweet messages.

13:55

When one user asked what tweets should be called

13:57

now,

13:58

Musk responded, X's.

14:01

X still hasn't figured out how to

14:03

solve its revenue problem. Musk

14:06

hired a new CEO who has experienced

14:08

courting advertisers and changed up the

14:10

subscription program to get users paying

14:12

for services.

14:13

But the company still isn't making money.

14:16

Elon Musk has also said in the past that

14:19

he is okay losing

14:21

money on some of his ventures. What

14:23

do you think of that?

14:25

Elon has said that he's

14:27

okay with losing

14:28

money. He's

14:31

willing to say things on Twitter, and

14:33

if he loses business from it, so be it. It's

14:37

one of the tenets when he talks about why

14:39

he bought it is this ability to have kind of

14:41

a free speech platform. The

14:43

question is how

14:45

long the patience lasts to lose money?

14:49

The man has a lot of companies.

14:52

Going

14:53

to space with SpaceX is a huge

14:55

priority. Tesla is a huge priority.

14:58

And Twitter now is on that shelf of

15:00

things that kind of clearly excites him,

15:02

and he's putting a lot of time into it. And he says it's hard

15:05

at this point, but he has

15:07

shown kind of in the past a willingness

15:10

to take huge risks on something that

15:12

he thought had a lot of potential. When

15:15

he was doing SpaceX, there

15:17

were a lot of people who didn't think the idea of reusable

15:19

rockets was a good idea. When

15:22

he was doing early days of Tesla, there

15:24

were a lot of people who didn't think

15:26

the electric car could go mainstream. And

15:30

he almost seems to revel in this idea

15:32

of being able to prove doubters wrong. And

15:35

so when it comes to Twitter, there are a lot

15:37

of doubters out there, and there are a lot of kind of

15:39

really smart people who have a lot of really

15:42

smart reasons for why. Everything

15:44

he's doing is wrong.

15:46

And you can't help but

15:48

imagine that he is sitting

15:50

on the X app and

15:53

looking at all of that criticism and

15:55

just feeding off of it and looking

15:57

forward to the day that he can say,

15:59

you so. It's classic

16:02

Elon in so many ways.

16:03

Absolutely. That's

16:17

all for today, Thursday, July 27th.

16:20

The journal is a co-production of Gimlet and the

16:22

Wall Street Journal. Additional reporting

16:24

in this episode by Alexa Kors, Colin

16:26

Eaton and Nuly Purnell.

16:31

Thanks for listening. See you tomorrow.