Elon Musk just killed the blue bird 🐦 Welcome to X Everything 𝕏; JPMorgan is going after N26’s lunch 🤫
FinTech is Eating the World, 24 July
Hey Everyone,
Happy Monday! We haven’t had such a crazy start to the new week in a while… 😳 Today all eyes are on Elon Musk who just killed the blue bird (welcome to X, the App that changes Everything), and JPMorgan that’s going after N26’s lunch (why I would seriously worry + some deeper dives into JPM & their killer strategy). Let’s jump straight into the hot stuff 🌶
Elon Musk just killed the blue bird 🐦 Welcome to X Everything 𝕏
Note: the first version of this post originally was published on LinkedIn but given the immense impact and interest, I’m sharing a more detailed version here too.
The (breaking) news 🗞 Elon Musk just killed the blue bird. Twitter logo no longer exists 🤯
It will now be X, another step towards the Everything App, or what might become the most powerful FinTech company in the world.
Let’s see what it means and why it’s a big deal.
More on this 👉 The first steps were taken 4 months ago when Twitter Inc. has been merged with X Corp. In March 2023 Twitter as we know it ceased to exist.
The new phase of Twitter will be all about X, which will run on a vision laid out 25 years ago.
A step back 🔙 Everything goes back to the days of X.com, an online bank Elon Musk co-founded with Harris Ficker, Christopher Payne, and Ed Ho in 1999. The company eventually became PayPal PYPL 0.00%↑, which today is one of the largest and most influential payment & finance companies in the world.
ICYMI: PayPal's solid results & why it's one of the strongest cos in the digital money space 💸
Despite the merger, Elon's sentiment for X always remained, and now is probably the best time to make it happen. But on a much greater scale.
The master plan🔥 That's why the CEO of Tesla TSLA 0.00%↑ & SpaceX bought Twitter in October 2022 and described his acquisition as "an accelerant to creating X, the everything app".
A month later, Musk said he will execute the X product plan "with some improvements" which will make Twitter "the most valuable financial institution in the world.
Fast forward to 2023, and it's clear that Elon is walking the talk.
The potential 🚀 With 396 million users, the social media giant could definitely be transformed into an app that does everything.
Not only it could become the first Super App of the West. More importantly, Twitter can evolve into the Super App that PayPal, Klarna, and Revolut always dreamed of.
ICYMI: Klarna just lost $1 billion. But it's not bad! 🤑 [& why you probably don’t understand Klarna well enough]
WeChat, the gold standard of Super Apps, today has 1 billion users and brings together social networking, payments, e-commerce, games, news, events, shopping, etc. all in one place.
And it started as a messaging app. Just like Twitter.
But here comes the crazy part.
Zoom out 🌍 Just 11 days ago Musk unveiled his latest company xAI. It's an artificial intelligence startup that will be a critical component of the Everything App. With it, Elon now has some really powerful tools at his disposal:
- Nearly 400 million Twitter accounts with years of text to train his AI agents on.
- Starlink satellite network, which can bring internet to all corners of the planet.
- X dot ai, which boasts a team of the top AI researchers on the planet.
The new Muskonomy
✈️ THE TAKEAWAY
Putting the pieces together 🧩 The above is already a super powerful toolbox on its own. When coupled with Tesla’s data and infrastructure, brilliant AI talent from Neuralink, and pretty much abundant capital (he’s the richest man in the world), it’s clear that Musk is slowly yet deliberately putting all the pieces together. It's a herculean task that will require grit, perseverance, and some luck. But one thing is clear:
We're witnessing the beginnings of the most powerful FinTech company in the world that could define the future of the internet.
The Everything App starts today: Twitter launches stock and crypto trading 💸 [+2 more reads]