Elon Musk, the South African son of an emerald mine mogul nepo-baby cosplaying as a dollar-discount Silicon Valley bad boy, wants you to trust him with your money. He needs you to trust him with your money, you see, because his website appears to be dying. He’s trashed the inherited trust of a brand built by someone smarter and more financially savvy than himself. He’s renamed Twitter to just X — which, what the hell does that even mean? He’s fired much of his staff, he’s put a limit on how many tweets users can read. And he spends most of his workday trying to distract fans from this $44 billion garbage fire by posting weird catchphrases, Tucker Carlson videos, and Lisa Frank-esque memes.
Doesn’t that sound like the kind of businessman you want trading your stocks?
If it does, you’re in luck because Twitter X’s latest money-making scheme seems to be centered on a tried-and-true formula — promise people they can get rich by investing in the market and reap the profits. Of course, for now, that plan is just hypothetical. According to Semafor, Musk’s company has reached out to financial data firms hoping to partner with one (or several) to turn X into a kind of trading platform with “financial content, real-time stock data, and other features.” Musk has asked these companies to bid for the chance to reach customers on Twitter — though he isn’t offering up any of his own money to build this new hub — and wanted proposals submitted by last week. The pivot is all part of Musk’s plan to turn X into a one-stop shop app like China’s WeChat and Indonesia’s Gojek.
But, judging by reactions to this stock trading news from users of his own site, Musk needs a miracle to convince people to trust him with their hard-earned money.
Finally, won’t even have to switch apps to lose everything in a pump-and-dump https://t.co/hWRpFcBJ3o
— Patrick Monahan (@pattymo) August 3, 2023
you’re going see first ballot, hall of fame pump-and-dumps on here https://t.co/voCMp15MLu
— jordan (@JordanUhl) August 3, 2023
oh he is going to PRISON https://t.co/DvH17BWu0g
— Lolo (@LolOverruled) August 3, 2023
y’all trusting the app that couldn’t keep your tweets in the circle with your money? https://t.co/Xn5tHKovu9 pic.twitter.com/T1qzsyDIuO
— full-snack developer (@notdanilu) August 3, 2023
https://t.co/BGs7rrFS89 pic.twitter.com/2uWHc11qxu
— Dave Itzkoff (@ditzkoff) August 3, 2023
I’m sure they’ll be super careful about SEC regulation. https://t.co/p14odCEIOP
— Dr. Arachnid Genitalia, Esq. (@CallMeMrWiggles) August 3, 2023
https://t.co/8ME9YVpKbP pic.twitter.com/WV4tdAmmZv
— martin rickman (@martinrickman) August 3, 2023
I strongly encourage this company to keep trying to get into industries where you will actually be swiftly punished for breaking laws https://t.co/JOLH3uPdXI
— chickenpuppet.bsky.social (@chknpuppetmk5) August 3, 2023
Musk gave a lukewarm counter to the rumors earlier today, perhaps after reading some of these tweets.
No work is being done on this to the best of my knowledge
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) August 3, 2023