Twitter is now X Corp? What’s with that?

Just when I thought Twitter had finally stopped changing everything around… Here we go again.

California court documents have revealed that Twitter, Inc. is no more. Instead, Elon Musk quietly merged it into a different company: X Corp.

Musk is a big fan of the letter X. After all, PayPal began as a startup called X.com. X Corp. is a subsidiary of X Holdings Corp., and he also created X.AI in early March. (No word yet on what that will do… and interesting, given that Musk is a signatory on a letter calling for a moratorium on AI development.)

Musk also apparently tried to keep this change secret. As a private company, Twitter is no longer required to publicly report on major business changes. This change only came into the public knowledge as part of a lawsuit involving Lara Loomer, a failed congressional candidate.

So why X? In October 2022, Musk Tweeted, “Buying Twitter is an accelerant to creating X, the everything app,” and, “Twitter probably accelerates X by three to five years, but I could be wrong.”

For Musk, turning Twitter into X Corp. might be the first step to achieving his dream. True to its tagline, the “everything app” is meant to do everything. Need a cab to the airport? Want to video-chat a friend? Craving dinner but don’t want to cook? Get everything you want with X.

Using one app for everything seems a bit too Big Brother to me, but such an app already exists. In China, people use WeChat for all of the above; you can even get a paycheck via the platform. But good luck trying to get in to see if you like it; if you’re not in China, you’ll likely need an existing WeChat user to verify your account. 

If you’re skeptical of an everything app, like me, there’s a sliver of good news: Given how badly Twitter is struggling lately, industry experts are skeptical that X is coming anytime soon.

But for now, a moment of silence for the death of Twitter, Inc. I hope at least that we get to keep that small blue bird.