Musk: "Twitter Will Grow More Than 10 Times Its Current Value"

Explanation of Twitter 2.0... Announcement of 'Digital Banking' Integration

Elon Musk, CEO of Tesla, revealed plans to grow the social media (SNS) platform Twitter, which he acquired, into a company worth more than 10 times its current value.

According to the Wall Street Journal (WSJ) on the 2nd, Musk met with employees last week to explain 'Twitter 2.0' and said that Twitter would become a company valued at over $250 billion (approximately 327.5 trillion KRW). The estimated value of Twitter, a privately held company, is currently about $20 billion (26.2 trillion KRW). Musk did not specify a concrete timeline for achieving this but added, "(The goal) is clear, but it will be a difficult task."

Elon Musk [Photo by Yonhap News]

Musk's vision is comparable to the current market values of major U.S. financial firms JP Morgan and Bank of America (BOA), which stand at approximately $380 billion and $230 billion, respectively. WSJ reported that Musk mentioned at a conference hosted by Morgan Stanley last month, "I think it can become the largest financial institution in the world."

'Twitter 2.0' is a long-term plan Musk introduced after acquiring Twitter in October last year, including features such as encrypted direct messages (DMs), long-form tweets, and payments. Musk has also referred to it as an "everything app."

WSJ described Musk's plan for Twitter as "digital banking," noting that he said the core of 'Twitter 2.0' is to place Twitter at the center of users' financial lives. The vision is a world where users can easily send money to each other and earn interest on deposits through the Twitter app. This suggests integrating online payment services similar to PayPal, the world's largest fintech company, into Twitter.

This is interpreted as very similar to the vision Musk planned at X.com, the predecessor of PayPal, which he co-founded in his late 20s. X.com disappeared after merging with PayPal but was later sold to eBay, which earned Musk a significant amount of money and provided the foundational capital for founding SpaceX, Tesla, and others.

WSJ explained that Musk is updating his early web banking vision for the app economy through Twitter and is shaping the framework of a so-called "super app" that encompasses everything. This is similar to China's Tencent mobile messenger WeChat, which has 1 billion users and started as a messaging service but now offers various services including SNS, payments, WeChat Pay, and insurance purchases.

Last year, Musk also mentioned on a podcast hosted by a fan club, "We don't have an app as good as China's WeChat," and said, "For example, what if we copied WeChat?" However, unlike WeChat, which is mainly limited to China, Twitter aims to provide services to users worldwide. Twitter is known to have 200 million users. Additionally, Musk expressed on his Twitter in November last year that "in 12 to 18 months, monthly users will exceed 1 billion."