Microblogging site Twitter is no longer an independent company as its new owner Elon Musk has merged it with his firm X Corp.
Though Twitter is still functional as a social media platform, this could be Mr Musk’s first step towards transforming the company into an “everything app” like China’s WeChat.
In the past, Mr Musk has indicated that acquiring Twitter would be an “accelerant” for creating X that he called an “everything app”. He said he intended to make X similar to WeChat.
First released in 2011, WeChat is a super-app owned by Shenzhen-headquartered technology company Tencent Holdings. It is an instant messaging and payments app that is used by more than 1 billion people.
Mr Musk, the billionaire founder of the world’s biggest electric vehicle company Tesla, tweeted about the move on Tuesday with the single character “X”. His one-letter tweet had attracted more than 22.5 million views within hours.
“Twitter … has been merged into X Corp and no longer exists ... X Corp is a privately held corporation … its parent corporation is X Holdings Corp. No publicly traded corporation owns 10 per cent or more of the stock of X Corp or X Holdings Corp,” said a document submitted on April 4 last year to a US court in a lawsuit filed against the company and its former chief executive, Jack Dorsey, by activist Laura Loomer.
Ms Loomer is suing Twitter for flouting laws after her account was banned in 2019.
Mr Musk, who has more than 134.4 million followers on Twitter, was the original owner of the X.com domain. It was the name of the online payments company that he started and ultimately merged with PayPal. However, he repurchased the domain in 2017 for an undisclosed sum.
Mr Musk, who bought Twitter for $44 billion in October, was also accused of manipulating Twitter's algorithm to boost the reach of his own tweets in February.
He instructed a team of his engineers to tweak the algorithm so his tweets would gain traction, resulting in a flood of his messages appearing on users' feeds, Platformer.news reported.
Mr Musk's time at the helm of Twitter has been tumultuous.
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Jared Kushner and Elon Musk watch the Fifa World Cup final match between Argentina and France. Getty Images -
Mr Musk attends model and businesswoman Heidi Klum's 2022 Halloween party at Moxy Lower East Side, in New York City Getty -
Mr Musk on stage next to Optimus the humanoid robot in Palo Alto, California, in September 2022 AFP -
Mr Musk speaks at the Tesla Giga Texas manufacturing 'Cyber Rodeo' grand opening party, in Austin, Texas, in 2022 AFP -
Mr Musk shakes hands with Brazil's then president Jair Bolsonaro, at the event Conecta Amazonia in Porto Feliz, Sao Paulo state, in 2022 AFP -
Mr Musk and his mother, Maye Musk, arrive for the 2022 Met Gala at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, in 2022 AFP -
Mr Musk attends the start of the production at Tesla's Gigafactory in Gruenheide, in 2022 AFP -
Mikey Day as a lawyer, Cecily Strong as a judge, and host Mr Musk as Wario during the 'Wario' sketch on NBC's 'Saturday Night Live', in 2021 Getty -
Mr Musk and son X Æ A-12 onstage at 'Time' Person of the Year in New York, in 2021 AFP -
Mr Musk dancing onstage during a delivery event for Tesla's China-made Model 3 cars in Shanghai, in 2021 Reuters -
Mr Musk with Armin Laschet, at the time CDU party federal chairman and prime minister of Germany's North Rhine-Westphalia, at the Tesla Gigafactory in Gruenheide, in 2021 Getty -
Mr Musk at the construction site of the Tesla Gigafactory in Gruenheide, near Berlin, Germany, in 2020 EPA -
Mr Musk leaves a New York court in 2019, after a hearing in a lawsuit brought against him by the US Securities and Exchange Commission Getty -
A prototype of SpaceX's Starship spacecraft in Boca Chica, Texas, in 2019 Reuters -
Mr Musk and then partner Grimes at The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City, in 2018 AFP -
From left, Mr Musk, Corning chief executive Wendell Weeks, then US president Donald Trump and Johnson & Johnson chief executive Alex Gorsky at the White House, in 2017 AFP -
Mr Musk presents his plan to colonise Mars at the International Astronautics Congress in Guadalajara, Mexico, in 2016 EPA -
Mr Musk with then Japanese prime minister Shinzo Abe after a test drive of the Tesla Model S P85D in Palo Alto, California, in 2015 Reuters -
Mr Musk with then wife Talulah Riley at the 2011 British Academy Film Awards in London Getty -
Mr Musk after Tesla's initial public offering at the Nasdaq market in New York, in 2010 Reuters -
Then US president Barack Obama with Mr Musk on a tour of Cape Canaveral Air Force Station at Cape Canaveral, Florida, in 2010 Reuters -
Mr Musk in the Tesla Roadster electric car at the North American International Auto Show in Detroit, in 2009 Reuters -
Mr Musk with music producer Quincy Jones at the Tesla Roadster launch party in 2008 AFP -
Mr Musk answers questions about the new Tesla Model S all-electric car, at its unveiling in Hawthorne, California, in 2009 AFP -
Elon Musk in Los Angeles in 2008. Getty -
Tesla and SpaceX founder Elon Musk in 2004 Getty
He has fired more than half of the company's employees and shut down units and offices around the world, raising concerns that there may not be enough people to carry out oversight roles in vital areas of its operations.
Twitter's revenue and adjusted earnings plunged by 40 per cent on an annual basis in December, as several advertisers withdrew after Mr Musk took charge of the company, The Wall Street Journal reported last month.
