Elon Musk hints he could launch his own social network if Twitter deal collapses

Elon Musk could launch his own social network – X.com – if his deal to buy Twitter collapses, he has hinted.

Mr Musk is currently attempting to break free of his original $44 billion offer for Twitter. He argues that the company misled him about how many bots are on the site, and that he should be not be forced to go through with the deal as a result.

He appears to be preparing for the eventuality that he will not be forced to buy the company by selling large amounts of Tesla stock. In a series of tweets, he said the $7 billion sale had been made in case Twitter was successful in forcing the deal to close.

In a thread of posts about that eventuality, one user asked whether Mr Musk had planned to launch his own social network if he is successful in escaping the deal. And he not only hinted that he would – but also seemed to give away the address.

X.com simply points to a website that shows the letter x, and nothing more. But it has long been owned by Mr Musk, who has used it for a variety of purposes.

Originally, X.com was an online bank that was co-founded by Mr Musk and would go on to become part of PayPal. The branding was eventually lost in a series of mergers in the early 2000s.

PayPal originally kept ownership of the X.com domain name, but sold it to Mr Musk in 2017. He said that he had bought it because of its “sentimental value”.

Since then, it has largely stayed dormant. While it has occasionally been used for marketing campaigns – such as directing visitors to a hat sale on another website – it has largely just shown that single “x”.

Mr Musk gave no indication of how that X.com website would look, or even a firm commitment that it would launch.