Twitter has ceased to be an independent company after merging with a newly formed shell firm called X Corp, driving speculation about what Elon Musk intends for the social media platform.
Twitter ‘no longer exists’ after being merged with X Corp, according to a document submitted in April to a California court for a lawsuit filed last year by conservative activist Laura Loomer against the company and its former CEO, Jack Dorsey.
It’s unclear what the change means for Twitter, which has seen a sweeping overhaul since the South African-born Musk bought the company for US$44-billion last year. The billionaire owner has in the past suggested that buying Twitter would be an ‘accelerant’ for creating X — which he dubbed an ‘everything app’. Musk tweeted about the move on Tuesday with the single character ‘X’.
Musk has professed his desire to make X similar to China’s WeChat, a super app owned by Tencent Holdings, which is used for everything from payments and booking event tickets to messaging. However, he’s been vague about how it will fit in with his sprawling business empire. Musk also owns the domain X.com — the name of the online payments company he started and eventually merged with PayPal.
Musk is president of the firm and its parent, X Holdings, which was also set up last month and has an authorised capital of $2-million.
The move sparked intense speculation on Twitter about what it meant, with Musk’s tweet attracting more than 13 million views within hours. In Japan, the topic ‘Twitter Gone’ started trending, with users joking that Twitter’s new name will resemble that of a local rock band, X Japan.