Twitter Inc. ceased to be an independent company after merging with a newly formed shell company called X Corp., prompting speculation about what Elon Musk intends to do with the social media platform.
Twitter “doesn’t exist anymore” after merging with X Corp.according to an April 4 document filed in a California court for a lawsuit against the company and its former chief executive Jack Dorsey filed last year by conservative activist Laura Loomer.
It’s unclear what the change means for Twitter, which has undergone a radical restructuring since Musk bought the company for $44 billion last year. The billionaire owner had suggested in the past that buying Twitter would be an “accelerator” for the creation of X, which he called a “universal app.” Musk tweeted about the move Tuesday by writing a single character: “X.”
The world’s second-richest man has declared his desire to make X similar to China’s WeChat, a super-app owned by Tencent Holdings Ltd. that is used to do everything from payments and event ticket reservations to messaging.
But Trump has been unclear about how this will fit with his vast business empire, which spans from electric car giant Tesla Inc. to Space Exploration Technologies Corp. Musk also owns the domain “X.com,” the name of the online payments company he founded and eventually merged with PayPal..
Musk initially set up a trio of holding companies in Delaware in April of last year with a variation of the name “X Holdings” as part of his offer to buy Twitter. But X Corp. was incorporated on March 9 in Nevada, according to filings in that state. Its merger with Twitter was presented on March 15.
Musk is chairman of the firm and its parent, X Holdings Corp., which was also incorporated last month and has an authorized capital of US$2 million, the documents show.
“Musk could create a parent structure, similar to Alphabet, where he has all his companies,” said Mandeep Singh, an analyst at Bloomberg Intelligence.
Twitter, which no longer has a team that handles media inquiries, did not immediately respond to questions sent by Bloomberg News. The law firm representing Twitter in the case, Willkie Farr & Gallagher, also did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The news sparked intense speculation on Twitter about what this measure entails., and Musk’s tweet had more than 13 million views in a matter of hours. In Japan, the topic “Twitter Gone” began to trend.
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