Elon Musk's everything app 'X' sounds a lot like China's WeChat

TOKYO - Mr Elon Musk on Tuesday teased something called "X, the everything app" after he buys Twitter. Based on the billionaire's past comments, that service could look a lot like Chinese super app WeChat.

Mr Musk did not provide many details beyond a one-line tweet. But the Tesla head honcho has openly admired the Tencent Holdings app that has grown from a messaging service to a mini-Internet used daily by more than a billion Chinese.

He has mused aloud about making Twitter more useful, indicating that he wants it to be more like WeChat and TikTok, the video-sharing service owned by ByteDance that has taken off across the US.

And he has drawn parallels to so-called super apps common in parts of Asia, letting people use a single smartphone application for a range of services from communications to summoning a car.

Here are five things about WeChat that could serve as a template for Mr Musk:

• It is much more than social media. A true super app, hundreds of millions use WeChat daily to book rides, make dining reservations and order food. That is possible through a vibrant network of "mini programs" or lite apps that connect directly to WeChat's interface.

• WeChat is a fintech titan, one of China's biggest payment and online finance networks. Users send each other money, pay for goods and services, and even borrow money.

• It is one of the country's most popular news and entertainment portals. As in the US, many younger users increasingly get much of their news through social media feeds, just even more so in China.

• Businesses use it too. The WeChat mini-program economy is worth roughly US$240 billion (S$342 billion) and grew about 12.5 per cent to 450 million users in 2021.

• In short, WeChat functions as an all-in-one service – combining the uses of apps such as Facebook, Twitter, Uber, Instagram and Substack.

At Tesla's annual shareholder meeting in August, Mr Musk stressed that he uses Twitter a lot and that he has ideas on ways to make the platform "radically better." He compared his ambitions for Twitter with the vision he had for X, a financial services company he co-founded in 1999.

There is one thing though that Mr Musk – an advocate for Internet freedoms – is unlikely to take a page from. WeChat is heavily monitored and censored: Armies of artificial intelligence and human moderators help ensure it is clean of content the ruling Communist Party deems undesirable. That is everything from lewd posts to dissent and criticism of the government. BLOOMBERG