What Is Elon Musk's X App, Could It Be Like WeChat?

Wechat may be an application that Elon Musk will imitate while developing Twitter. (photo: doc. pixabay)

JAKARTA – After stating that he is ready to re-acquire Twitter, Tesla CEO Elon Musk also made a statement to soon be able to build all kinds of applications which he temporarily dubs Application X.

This makes the public wonder, about whether the X application that appeared in the tweet of the world's richest person on Wednesday, October 5 on Twitter.

Musk has agreed to go ahead with his original plan to buy the social media company for $44 billion and on Wednesday he tweeted: "Buying Twitter is an acceleration to create X, the everything app."

The concept of an everything app, often referred to as a “super app”, is very popular in Asia and technology companies around the world have been trying to emulate it.

The super app, or what Musk calls the “everything app”, has been described as a Swiss mobile app knife, offering users a range of services such as messaging, social networking, peer-to-peer payments and e-commerce shopping.

“This massive app is widely used in Asia because mobile is the primary form of access to the internet for many people in the region,” wrote Scott Galloway, New York University professor of marketing and host of the technology podcast "Pivot," last year.

Super apps from China like WeChat have more than 1 billion monthly users. It has even become a part of everyday life in China. Users can call a car or taxi, send money to friends and family or make payments in stores.

According to the South China Morning Post, in 2018, several Chinese cities began testing WeChat for an electronic identification system that would be associated with user accounts.

Grab, the leading super app in Southeast Asia, also offers food delivery services, online transportation services, on-demand package delivery, as well as financial and investment services.

During a question-and-answer session with Twitter employees in June, Musk noted there's no equivalent to a super app like WeChat outside of Asia.

"You basically live on WeChat in China," he said, adding that he saw an opportunity to create such an app.

He added that more tools and services to Twitter could also help Musk achieve his lofty growth goals for the company. During a Q&A with employees, Musk said he wanted Twitter to grow from its 237 million users to at least one billion users worldwide.

Musk and members of his inner circle have texted several times about the idea of ​​adding digital payments to Twitter, according to messages released in the discovery phase of litigation between Musk and the social media company.

Snapchat's parent Snap Inc had previously introduced peer-to-peer payments called Snapcash, but ended the feature in 2018. They've also pushed the app into mobile games and recently ended the venture as part of a cost-cutting plan.

Meta Platform Inc's Facebook and Instagram have also tried to expand social networking and messaging into e-commerce.