It appears as though Musk plans a follow-up act to his Twitter grab. And, of course, why would he not? He’s already devalued Twitter by 50%, according to some experts. So obviously, the next thing to do is go exponentially bigger with a super app, one that does… everything?
He wants to copy one that started out in China, where it is much easier to regulate things because everything is regulated out of offices in Beijing, and they can make changes hour by hour. Here, not so much. Additionally, theoretically, the United States has an anti-trust division at the DOJ, though – admittedly, it’s an open question as to whether anyone has turned the lights or computers on in that division in decades. Regardless, here is the man himself, wanting to invade our lives further:
Elon Musk calls his next idea the “X App.” And if Musk-owned Twitter has already been a challenge for Washington’s politicians and regulators, the disruption caused by the X App could easily dwarf it. The idea is a Western version of WeChat, the Chinese super-app that more than a billion people use for messaging, payments, shopping, rideshares, gaming, news and other daily activities.
But building a “super-app” like WeChat is a far more complicated challenge than Twitter, with far more points of conflict with regulators in Washington, California, Brussels and elsewhere. Nothing like it exists yet in the West, and it could create a “regulatory nightmare,” said Caitriona Fitzgerald, the deputy director for the Electronic Privacy Information Center, a nonprofit that advocates for privacy reform.
If Musk goes through with this, I’ll be convinced that someone, somewhere (Perhaps someone who controls a lot of MAGA moves), has either enlisted Musk to help take over the world or someone has total control of Musk through kompromat.
As I said above, he is already busy running Twitter’s value into the ground and much more dangerously – to his wealth – his Tesla investors are beyond furious because Musk cares only about his new toys and isn’t concentrating on running Tesla, which is, by far, the biggest source of Musk’s wealth and is currently in a nose dive. In effect, the decision to purchase Twitter has actually cost Musk $100 billion, so why would he do it?
Questions, questions, questions. He’s turned businesses around before. Tesla was barely breathing at one point. But this self-inflicted wound, one so easy to predict, is just hard to explain.
****
[email protected], @JasonMiciak, SUBSTACK: ‘IT WAS A VACCINE CLOT’: MAGAS AGAIN ENDANGER LIVES, On last night’s NFL game and blaming the vaccine.
If he copies china’s super app too much I suspect they’ll take his ass to the World Court (the irony of this is pretty fucking funny). Ought to be fun to watch him lose his ass there.
Hmm…sounds fun, Spike. But what makes you think that?
The incompetence he’s displayed in running twitter doesn’t bode well for another, bigger tech venture. Also, how many twitter subscribers or the general public would trust him enough to participate?
Which is why I am looking forward to laughing my ass off when the saner, more low-key tech guy Christopher Bouzy launches Spoutible soon. Of all the platforms Musk wanted to kneecap, he overlooked that one. And wouldn’t it be ironic if that South African Boer wound up being outdone by a black man in the social media race?
He needs about six months with no social media access.
What, and miss the chance to see him lose more net worth?
Excuse me while I groan at the top of my lungs. Christ and Eset, does anyone else not realize this is yet another pipe dream that looks to be as successful as Truth Social? Anything Musk has been part of that was an actual success, the latter had nothing to do with the former. This is just him indulging in a rescue fantasy when the reality is no one outside of delusional cultists (sound familiar?) believes him or should.