Twitter turned WeChat: Musk lays out ambitions for $44bn takeover
Tesla chief executive Elon Musk has framed his ambitions for Twitter as similar to China’s WeChat: an all-encompassing messaging app and social media.
According to reports from Business Insider, the entrepreneur told employees in an all-hands meeting on Thursday that the aim for Twitter should be about keeping users “entertained and informed”.
He said there was an opportunity to carve out a WeChat equivalent outside of China, which he said doesn’t exist at the moment.
Comparing to other social media firms, Musk said: “TikTok is interesting, but you want to be informed about serious issues as well. And I think Twitter, in terms of serious issues, can be a lot better at informing people.”
Musk also alluded to potential lay offs of Twitter employees. “The company does need to get healthy. Right now the costs exceed the revenue,” he said, but gave no additional details on this.
Earlier this week, Elon Musk, as well as Tesla and SpaceX, were hit by a $258bn (£210.2bn) lawsuit by a Dogecoin investor accusing them of engaging in a “Crypto Pyramid Scheme (aka Ponzi scheme)” relating to the cryptocurrency.
The complaint, filed in a Manhattan court, alleged that the world’s richest man and the two companies he runs, electric vehicle maker Tesla and spacecraft manufacturer SpaceX, were involved in a “fraudulent” scheme concerning Dogecoin.