Twitter no longer exists
Musk says his 'dog is the CEO of Twitter'
Twitter no longer exists as an independent company. Elon Musk has merged it with a newly formed company called X Corp., leading to speculation about his plans for the social media platform.
"Twitter, Inc. has been merged into X Corp. and no longer exists," reads the court document [pdf] filed by Twitter in a California court.
This only became public because of the filings, which Twitter submitted in response to a lawsuit filed last year. The suit accuses Twitter and former CEO Jack Dorsey of violating conservative activist Laura Loomer's free speech rights.
According to the filings, X Corp. was established on 9th March, and its proposed merger with Twitter was filed on 15th March.
X Corp itself is owned by X Holdings Corp., which has an authorised capital of $2 million.
"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," the document states.
Musk's creation of X Corp. could be a step towards establishing a larger parent company for all of his ventures (which include Tesla, SpaceX, The Boring Company and Neuralink), similar to Alphabet Inc.
Musk "informed" his 134 million followers about Twitter's merger with X Corp. through a one-letter tweet:
Twitter no longer exists
Musk says his 'dog is the CEO of Twitter'
Twitter no longer exists as an independent company. Elon Musk has merged it with a newly formed company called X Corp., leading to speculation about his plans for the social media platform.
The everything app
After acquiring Twitter for $44 billion last year, Musk indicated that the company would serve as an accelerator in the development of X, the everything app.
"Buying Twitter is an accelerant to creating X, the everything app," he tweeted last year.
"Twitter probably accelerates X by three to five years, but I could be wrong."
Musk already owns the X.com domain, which was originally an online bank he co-founded in 1999. The bank merged with Confinity Inc., a software company, a year later and was renamed PayPal.
Industry experts have expressed doubts about Musk's ability to turn Twitter into a full-service platform. While China's WeChat does everything from online payments to taxi booking, attempts to establish such a platform in the West have so far been unsuccessful.
Twitter no longer exists
Musk says his 'dog is the CEO of Twitter'
Twitter no longer exists as an independent company. Elon Musk has merged it with a newly formed company called X Corp., leading to speculation about his plans for the social media platform.
"My dog is the CEO of Twitter"
During a live BBC interview streamed on Twitter Spaces on Tuesday, Musk acknowledged that managing Twitter has been "quite painful" and "a rollercoaster".
"It's not been boring. It's been quite a rollercoaster," he said - presumably referencing his decision to fire more than 5,000 of Twitter's 7,000 employees last year.
He would be willing to sell Twitter if he comes across the right buyer, Musk added.
The Tesla CEO said the recent months had been "quite stressful", but still believes acquiring Twitter was the right decision.
When asked about his earlier promise to step down as Twitter CEO, Musk joked that his dog had taken over the position.
In December, Musk ran a Twitter poll asking his followers whether he should step down as the head of the social media site.
He wrote, "Should I step down as head of Twitter? I will abide by the results of this poll."
During the BBC interview, Musk said: "I did stand down. I keep telling you I'm not the CEO of Twitter, my dog is the CEO of Twitter."
Musk's dog is a Shiba Inu named Floki.
Mr. Musk, who is 51 years old, has often made jokes about the controversy surrounding his leadership of Twitter.
This month he replaced the social media platform's blue bird logo with the icon of the cryptocurrency Dogecoin, which also features a Shiba Inu.
He also painted over the "W" in the sign at the company's headquarters in San Francisco, turning it into "Titter."
Computing says:
Musk is a classic internet troll, but he's managed to keep that tendency out of (most) of his other companies. Tesla has a functioning press team; The Boring Company has never been known as The Boob Company. And yet Twitter now auto-respond to press requests with a poo emoji. It's as if 4chan spontaneously manifested a CEO.
How long can this realistically continue? Even average site users, who don't follow Musk's latest controversy (whatever it happens to be), are noticing the changes: the rise in misinformation and hate speech; the funnel to advertising and Musk's own tweets; searches pettily redirecting to alternative terms.
Elon Musk is a clear example of why self-regulation cannot work.