As the epic Twitter deal nears closure, what are Elon Musk’s plans for the platform?

Musk’s visit had given rise to some internal concern about what would happen to people on foreign-worker visas. Employees continued to keep working even amid reports that Musk could gut the place with massive layoffs, CNBC reported quoting a person at the company.

However, Musk allayed fears on Wednesday when he told Twitter employees that he did not plan to cut 75 percent of the staff after the takeover as reported earlier, Bloomberg reported.

A few days after Musk was asked to join the Twitter board in April, he had texted Twitter CEO Parag Agrawal that he had tonnes of ideas for the social media platform.

“I just want Twitter to be maximum amazing,” he had said.

A few weeks later, Musk announced he planned to buy the company. Later, he reneged on that deal and got sued by Twitter. Earlier this month, Musk proposed to proceed with his original $44 billion bid to buy Twitter.

ALSO READ: Elon Musk says no plan to lay off 75% of Twitter employees

In the last few months, Musk has pointed at some changes he may push for in the platform. On October 5, he tweeted: “Buying Twitter is an accelerant to creating X, the everything app.”

 

 

Although he did not provide further details, it is believed that Musk may be hinting at the so-called ‘super apps’ popular in China and other Asian countries, CNBC reported.

Super apps are applications that act as a one-stop shop for all mobile needs. This would eliminate the need to have others apps for different functions.

With over a billion users, the Chinese app WeChat, run by technology giant Tencent, is the biggest super app in the world at present.

Musk could also take inspiration from the Signal messaging app as well. At the beginning of the year, former Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey had texted Musk that Twitter in the future should have a protocol run by a foundation, making it separate from any business concerns, similar to what Signal does, Verge reported.

Musk too wanted to incorporate some of Signal’s features into Twitter.

“Trying to figure out what to do with Twitter DMs,” the billionaire had texted Brian Acton, Signal’s co-founder and executive chairman.

At a town hall with Twitter employees in June, Musk said he believed incorporating payments within Twitter would be an “interesting thing to do.” One of WeChat’s biggest features is WeChat Pay, which makes money by taking a cut of all the payments made from the app. Musk could do the same with Twitter.