Tech billionaire Elon Musk has teased a potential new social media platform in a cryptic tweet amid the ongoing bitter legal feud with Twitter.
While responding to a question to one of his 103 million followers, the Tesla CEO revealed the name of the apparent site.
“Have you thought about creating your own social platform? If Twitter deal doesn’t come through?” the “Tesla Owners Silicon Valley” Twitter account asked.
“X.com,” came Musk’s reply.
“X.com” was the domain of a startup that Musk had founded in 1999 and eventually merged with PayPal. In 2017, Musk reacquired the domain name from PayPal. Soon after came an announcement that he had re-launched the site but is completely blank except for a small “x” on the top left corner of a white screen.
He didn’t elaborate further on “X.com” in his tweets.
His reply was in a longer thread of conversation about Tesla stock when Musk stated why is he selling the company’s stock.
“In the (hopefully unlikely) event that Twitter forces this deal to close and some equity partners don’t come through, it is important to avoid an emergency sale of Tesla stock,” Musk, 51, responded before teasing his “X.com” plans.
He even added that if the Twitter deal doesn’t close, he will buy Tesla stock again.
Musk’s interaction comes after a months-long dispute with Twitter that began after Musk made a $44 billion offer to buy Twitter and then rescinded it, blaming it on the number of spam or bot accounts on the site.
The SpaceX boss alleged that Twitter had not properly disclosed the number of bots on the site for which he was terminating the deal.
The Parag Agrawal-led company filed a lawsuit against Musk soon after.
The suit, filed in an US court, said that Musk had violated his agreement with the company and caused damage that no financial penalty could repair.
Twitter described Musk's withdrawal from the deal as "a model of hypocrisy". Musk urged the court to delay proceedings in the case till next year, citing the complexity of the matter, but the request was denied.
The world’s richest man pledged to pay $54.20 a share for Twitter but now wants to back out of the agreement. Twitter is trying to enforce the billionaire to keep his promise.
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