I can relate to Elon Musk’s ill-advised idea to rebrand Twitter and make it his long-desired financial heavyweight because I know the burning desire to convince others that you are correct. He wasn’t correct when he attempted to rebrand PayPal and launch an online banking startup in 2000, and he still needs to be corrected now. That won’t stop him from attempting to Show Us, though.
The Twitter logo has already been altered in the app to a Unicode X, as Elon Musk claims he plans to rebrand Twitter X. There is a history between Musk and X: Elon Musk sought to rename PayPal, which is why Peter Thiel fired him from PayPal. You’ll never guess what he intended to get the name changed to.
With electronic payments, checking accounts, stock trading, and mutual funds, Musk’s 1999 launch of X.com sounds a lot like what he is doing with the platform previously known as Twitter today. Quote-tweet dunks are the only thing that it lacks. You’re right if you’re thinking, “This kind of reminds me of WeChat,”
Casey Newton, a coworker and occasional drinking companion, has stated that the X makeover is a strategy to destroy Twitter. Even though it is undoubtedly cultural vandalism, I’m afraid I have to disagree that this is just that. What is happening is less deliberate than that; Elon Musk likely had no intention of purchasing Twitter in the first place, but after finding himself trapped with it, he decided to see if he could use it to take care of some unfinished business.
Elon Musk is learning that he could be more adept at managing a social media firm. Trump, various white nationalists, and some conspiracy theorist who was uploading child sex abuse stuff were all invited to continue using his platform as a result of his modifications in moderation, which have frightened the bejesus out of advertisers—Twitter’s primary source of revenue until Elon Musk acquired it.
Because it appears that businesses are concerned about being displayed next to videos of animal torture, Twitter advertisements are currently on sale, and Musk is threatening to revoke brand verification if they don’t spend at least $1,000 in the last 30 days or $6,000 in the past 180 days.
Twitter has never been the most popular social media platform, but this is a new low. Musk is attempting to change course by focusing on digital payments, which he believes he understands better. After all, Musk became rather wealthy because of PayPal’s success, despite Musk.
Musk’s goals for his payment app have been briefly discussed. The success of China’s WeChat inspired the so-called super app, which has long been a Silicon Valley preoccupation. These powerhouse applications resemble a mashup of Twitter, Instagram, Slack, Venmo, and the banking app. I can understand why; our Silicon Valley rulers are preoccupied with gaining power; money is just how the powerful keep score, and owning such an app would entail considerable influence.
X was a severely cash-losing business that, combined with Thiel’s, was also severely cash-losing, as was Confinity, which had created PayPal. Thiel resigned as CEO of the combined businesses, and Musk took over. However, it’s important to note that several of Thiel’s assistants persisted, notably David Sacks, a current venture capitalist, podcaster, and potential political influencer.
Even though user surveys suggested that changing the well-known PayPal branding to X needed to be smarter, Musk still wanted to do it. According to The PayPal Wars by Eric M. Jackson, Sacks determined that wouldn’t happen and was one of the coup organizers that got Musk fired.
Where credit is due, Sacks made a wise decision in this case. Consumer products need strong branding. Therefore, it’s not a good idea to make your payment business sound like a pornographic enterprise. Twitter’s redesign is confusing because Sacks is involved and ought to know better.
The truth is that banks in the US have been keeping up with technological advancements in a manner they haven’t elsewhere in the globe, where super applications have gained power, and with FedNow, the actual Federal Reserve. One of the most significant tech businesses in the world is JPMorgan Chase.
In the US, the app stores are a further obstacle to the development of the super app. You may purchase cat litter via your Amazon app, but not an ebook, since both Google and Apple take a share of any digital transactions. Any super app’s success would depend on the cooperation of both app stores, which is not a given that a super app may rival Google Pay and Apple Pay. You could object, “But Liz, isn’t that an antitrust issue?” Yes, my darling, it is—and I wouldn’t say I like the chances for any super app opponent, given what I have seen about app store antitrust lawsuits.
The attempt to chase the mega app fantasy has been made exceedingly careless, including grabbing the @ X handle after the rushed redesign. It also fits with Musk’s propensity to attempt to push his ideas on unwilling individuals. For example, when Musk was still working for PayPal, he pushed customers to upgrade to business accounts by annoyingly popping up messages targeting the site’s most regular users.
Although few customers canceled their accounts due to the swift and severe response, only “about one-fifth of our targeted sellers voluntarily upgraded,” according to Jackson.
According to the results of Twitter Blue, Musk still needs to learn his lesson. Giving consumers a service they want to pay for is necessary; more is needed to merely take away the items they have become accustomed to and inform them that those services now need money. There’s more: anyone considering banking with him will likely be scared off by the fast process of becoming X.
I don’t want the following things from my bank: White nationalists, problems with authentication, frequent, abrupt service changes, frequent service outages, additional fees introduced at random, spam, and fraud.
We are all witnessing Musk quickly implement significant public changes, and his attitude to simply altering the sign on the Twitter offices has yet to give me much hope. As an illustration, Musk was prevented from replacing the Twitter sign by the police because he neglected to get a permit. Even the installation of the new X sign sparked an investigation since it was done in a shoddy manner; it is now being removed.
Financial shenanigans have a long history in banking, going back to wildcat banking and things like forgery, embezzlement, inventive accounting, fraud, money laundering, you name it.
Regulating the banking sector in the US has been the answer, but only some people like it. Crypto is “fixing” the regulation by avoiding it, leading to a wide range of hacks, exploits, theft, creative accounting, fraud, money laundering, and other wrongdoings.
As bitcoin enthusiasts have learned the hard way, banking is heavily regulated, and for good reason. The technological aspects of creating a super app can be ignored because they are quite simple. Social interaction is difficult.
The cornerstone of finance is trust. That is the purpose of those rules! Now consider Musk’s actions about general rules and social issues on Twitter. Is this sort of man someone you would trust your money with? Ask yourself this question honestly. Source