Musk's Dream of a 'Super App' Realized? "Twitter to Merge and Dissolve with X Corporation"

It has been reported that Twitter Inc. has merged into the newly established company 'X' founded by CEO Elon Musk, raising expectations that Musk's long-cherished 'super application (app)' project may be entering a full-fledged phase. There are also prospects that if an app enabling various services such as e-commerce and digital banking based on Twitter emerges, it could be linked with Musk's major businesses to form a new business model.

Bloomberg News reported on the 11th (local time) that Twitter Inc. has officially ceased to exist after merging with the newly established company 'X Corp.' founded by CEO Musk, evaluating that Musk's development of a super app has begun in earnest. According to the report, documents submitted to a California court related to a lawsuit filed by conservative activist Laura Loomer against Twitter Inc. and former CEO Jack Dorsey confirmed that as of the 4th, Twitter Inc. no longer exists due to its merger with X Corp.

[Image source=Reuters Yonhap News]

X Corp. was established in Nevada on the 9th of last month, and the documents for the merger with Twitter were also submitted on the 15th of the same month, Bloomberg reported. Prior to this, Musk established a holding company named 'X Holdings' in Delaware when bidding to acquire Twitter in April last year.

On the day this news was reported, CEO Musk posted the letter "X" on his Twitter account. Although it was just a single character without further explanation, it attracted attention with over 35 million views within 15 hours of posting.

This merger news from Twitter comes after CEO Musk repeatedly expressed his vision to transform Twitter into a super app.

In October last year, while pursuing the acquisition of Twitter, he wrote on his Twitter account, "The acquisition of Twitter is a catalyst to create 'X,' the app for everything." He had previously argued that a super app offering a wide range of functions such as messaging, product payments, and remote vehicle hailing is necessary, and that Twitter should become a social media platform with many users like China's WeChat or TikTok.

Musk's super app vision appears to have started with his second startup, X.com. After selling his first startup, the internet-based information provider Zip2, he used the funds to found the online payment service X.com in 1999. Two years later, in 2001, Musk renamed the company to PayPal, which was acquired by the online marketplace eBay a year later. At that time, Musk received $165 million, which he used to establish other companies.

Sixteen years later, in 2017, Musk repurchased the X.com domain from PayPal. He bought only the X.com domain without touching other PayPal businesses. Currently, entering this domain displays a white screen with only the letter X. Musk explained on Twitter shortly after purchasing the domain that "there are no plans at the moment, but it has great sentimental value to me."

[Image source=Reuters Yonhap News]

CEO Musk seems to be considering payment services, which were the core business of X.com, as the key to the super app. According to The Wall Street Journal (WSJ), Musk explained the future vision of Twitter as 'Twitter 2.0' to employees last month, highlighting finance as a major task. His goal is to enable financial activities such as remittances, deposits, and payments on Twitter, effectively turning Twitter into a kind of 'digital bank.'

In fact, a foreign media outlet reported in January that Twitter has submitted applications to financial authorities including the U.S. Treasury to obtain licenses for payments across the United States since last year and has started software design, citing internal sources. It is reported that Twitter, led by Musk, plans to complete the payment license acquisition process in the U.S. within a year and then expand these procedures to other countries.

However, Bloomberg analyst Mandeep Singh said, "Musk could create a parent company structure similar to Alphabet (Google's parent company)," but added, "Given that large companies like Alphabet and Meta Platforms are facing difficulties, it is unclear how Twitter will be able to add e-commerce or payment functions."

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.