A year into owning X, Elon Musk is still coming up with unexpected ideas for what he wants the platform to be.
A company-wide meeting on Thursday, the year anniversary of when Musk took over Twitter, hosted by Musk and his CEO of a few months Linda Yaccarino, was mostly an ad nauseam going over the various product changes to the platform, according to two people present for the video call. These individuals requested anonymity as they were not authorized to speak to the press. Their identities are known to Insider. Both described the call overall as "scripted," but it wasn't without off-kilter comments.
During the call, Musk attempted to take a tone of excitement for what X will look like over the next year, the people present said. X will in 2024 be a "fully fledged" dating site, he insisted, as well as a digital bank. These details have not been previously reported, although other elements of the call were reported by The Verge as was the email that went out to staff right before the call by Fortune.
Musk did not get into details of how exactly X would become a dating app, if there was any user demand for such features, or what further product changes would be made to turn it into one, one of the people present said. However, the idea is in line with Musk's push for features that require payment, as most dating apps today are some form of subscription service.
An X spokesman did not respond to a request for comment. X's email line for the press sent the automated response "Busy now, please check back later."
Getting more users to give X payment and banking information ties in with Musk's long-held desire for X to offer full payment and banking services to users, part of his ambitions to create an "everything app" like WeChat, one of the people present said. "He wants people to pay for everything," the person noted. Musk said during the meeting he expects X to be capable of functioning as a bank by next year, the person added, whether or not users want it to be.
"It doesn't seem to be what users really want," the person said.
Musk can be persistent. For new users in New Zealand and the Philippines, a fee of $1 per year is now in place for the platform's most basic feature or posting is part of the initiative toward payments and banking, the person added. Such a small payment will make little impact on X's struggles with revenue, but it may give X more financial information from users that could be later plugged into payments features.
X is still in the process of getting the appropriate licenses in each US state to offer any kind of banking or money transfer services. The platform so far has received licenses in nine states, most recently Iowa and Mississippi, according to an online log.
In keeping with a "hype" tone, Musk also insisted during the meeting that X's nascent video features were as good as YouTube and floated another new idea of X video becoming part of smart TVs, one of the people added. That comment was reported by The Verge. Insider previously reported on Musk's push for live video at X and his aspirations to turn the platform into a video-centric "media channel."
Despite Musk's attempt during the meeting to boost the future of X, its remaining employees are not convinced. Several employees submitted questions before the meeting regarding the company's financial state as advertisers and users continue to flee the platform. People also asked about its current valuation, of which one of the people said there has still been "zero transparency." Others asked whether long-promised equity or stock grants would ever materialize. None of those questions were addressed during the meeting, both of the people present said.
"The story was that committing to Twitter 2.0 will be rewarding," an employee previously told Insider, "but he's failed to deliver."
Are you an X employee or someone else with insight to share? Contact Kali Hays at khays@insider.com, on secure messaging appSignal at 949-280-0267, or through Twitter DM at @hayskali. Reach out using a non-work device.
