Elon Musk announced a major personal for texts and audio/video calls shift via his newly acquired X/Twitter platform – stating he will phase out his personal phone number and conduct all texts and calls through the X app within months.
This aligns with Musk’s growing focus on transforming Twitter into a “super app” rivaling the likes of WeChat through built-in functionalities like payments, long-form tweets, and encrypted direct messaging.
Musk first revealed his super app vision for Twitter May 2022, tweeting “Voice and video chat coming soon, so you can chat with anyone on the platform by account, without giving them your phone number, and you can chat from anywhere in the world to anywhere in the world.”
The timing of this recent announcement coincides with X rapidly securing state regulatory approvals to offer fee-based financial services alongside its existing messaging platform. This key aspect of a super app model has seen approvals in 15 states so far, with Musk expecting full authorization across the US by mid-2024.
By discontinuing his personal number and conducting all communication via X instead, Musk is essentially embodying and endorsing his vision for an all-in-one super app future. While X lacks the massive user base of Twitter today, Musk’s influence and stature as the world’s richest individual will draw attention and add legitimacy to the app’s super app ambitions.
This also allows Musk to set the stage for ultimately integrating similar functionalities directly into Twitter long-term, once its massive user base is acclimated to the super app model through his high-profile X adoption.
Whether users ultimately abandon traditional messaging apps en masse for a converged super app remains uncertain. But Elon Musk is now clearly putting his money where his mouth is in terms of betting big on this digital convergence – and moving all his personal communication to X first.