Published , by Donovan Erskine
Published , by Donovan Erskine
After some back and forth between the billionaire and the social media company, it’s looking increasingly likely that Elon Musk will indeed acquire Twitter (TWTR) for $44 billion. Today, he held an all-hands on deck meeting with Twitter staff, where he answered questions and shared what he plans to do when he takes over as CEO. It was here that Musk shared he feels it would make sense for Twitter to have a feature that lets its users send and receive payments.
During Elon Musk’s all-hands on deck meeting with Twitter staff, he was asked about digital payment transactions on the platform, as shared by the New York Times’ Mike Isaac. "Money is fundamentally digital at this point and has been for a while. It would make sense to integrate payments into twitter so it's easy to send money back and forth," Musk said. His comments here seem to imply that he’s open to adding a feature that lets Twitter users digitally exchange currency back and forth.
Twitter already has a component that lets users send money with its Tips feature. However, this usually takes users to a different app, like Cash App or PayPal. An in-app Twitter feature that lets players do this could be a major move for the platform and its users. Twitter leadership has been criticized in the past for the way it monetizes the platform, it will be interesting to see if Musk looks to use a potential cash transaction system as a way to further monetize Twitter.
Elon Musk’s thoughts on in-app money exchanges was just one of several talking points during his meeting with Twitter employees earlier today. He also shared that he has a goal to get at least a billion users on Twitter. When asked about the platform’s moderation, Elon Musk also stated that he thinks people should be allowed to say racist things on Twitter, but the company shouldn’t promote it.