PremiumIn his first public remarks since reviving the effort to buy Twitter for about $44 billion, Musk called the acquisition “an accelerant” to building a kind of multi-function app.
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Tesla CEO Elon Musk on Tuesday said that buying Twitter Inc would pace up the creation of something he called "X the everything app". He suggested that he has ambitions for adding services to the blogging tool he wants to take private, according to the news agency Bloomberg.
In his first public remarks since reviving the effort to buy Twitter for about $44 billion, Musk called the acquisition “an accelerant" to building a kind of multi-function app.
Earlier, the Tesla CEO mused aloud about making Twitter more useful, indicating that he would like it to be more like WeChat, a messaging service that is very popular in China, and TikTok, the Chinese-owned video-sharing service that's taken off across the United States.
He’s drawn parallels to so-called super apps that are widely used in parts of Asia, letting people a single smartphone application for a broad range of services, from messaging and other communications to ordering food and summoning a car, as per Bloomberg reports.
Musk did not explain what “X" was, but he said in a follow-up tweet that Twitter “probably accelerates X by 3 to 5 years". He revives the $44 billion Twitter bid, aiming to avoid trial (2).
Currently, he is proposing proposing to buy Twitter Inc. for the original offer price of $54.20 a share, potentially avoiding a courtroom fight over one of the most contentious acquisitions in recent history.
Shares of Twitter climbed as much as 18% on the news. Representatives for Musk and for Twitter didn’t immediately respond to requests for comment.
Musk had been trying for months to back out of his contract to acquire Twitter. Musk began showing signs of buyer’s remorse shortly after the deal was announced, alleging that Twitter had misled him about the size of its user base and the prevalence of automated accounts known as bots.
He formally quit the accord in July, and Twitter sued him in Delaware Chancery Court to force him to go forward with the purchase. A trial is scheduled to begin on 17 October. In the weeks-long run-up to that showdown, lawyers for both sides have fired subpoenas at each other aimed at teasing out testimony and evidence.
(With Bloomberg inputs)