Elon Musk has acknowledged that his $44 billion acquisition of X platform (formerly Twitter) “could fail,” an unprecedented admission that came after he faced new public outcry over the decision to remove the social network’s “block” feature.
Musk has commented about the uncertain future of X even as Mark Zuckerberg’s social media platform, Thread, prepares to roll out a web version in its latest effort to attract users.
“The sad truth is that there are no great ‘social networks’ right now,” Musk said. “We may fail as many predicted, but we will do everything we can to succeed.”
A surprising decision from Elon Musk: Unblocking the Twitter X platform
Angry users
The owner of X, whose net worth is estimated at $225.5 billion, angered users last Friday by revealing that they will no longer be allowed to block accounts, except in the case of direct messages.
Musk argued that the ban feature “doesn’t make sense” and said users would have to simply “mute” accounts from appearing on their timeline.
The move sparked immediate opposition, with Monica Lewinsky among those urging X CEO Linda Iaccarino to reconsider scrapping the feature due to the harassment she is facing.
On Saturday, a glitch in the X platform caused photos and videos uploaded to Twitter before 2015 to disappear from the site. One of the photos temporarily erased was a selfie of the famous comedian Ellen DeGeneres from the 2014 Academy Awards alongside Jennifer Lawrence, Bradley Cooper and Meryl Stipe.
This image was later restored, although the defect still exists in some other media. And if the X platform fails at some point, it will be one of the most costly business disasters in history, as Musk was forced to sell a large portion of Tesla shares to finance the $ 44 billion deal.
