Elon Musk’s plans for Twitter may take inspiration from Chinese super apps
Elon Musk’s revived $44 billion deal to buy Twitter sparked fresh debate over what the billionaire will do with the service if he eventually owns it.
On Tuesday, Musk tweeted that buying Twitter is an “accelerant to creating X, the everything app.” He did not provide further details.
Musk may be hinting toward so-called “super apps” which are popular in China and other parts of Asia and pioneered by the likes of Chinese technology giant Tencent.
Super apps is a term to describe an app that often acts as a one-stop shop for all your mobile needs. For example, you might order a taxi or food via the app and at the same time do payments and messaging. This eliminates the need to have multiple apps for different functions.
Chinese app WeChat, run by Tencent, is the biggest super app in the world, with over a billion users.
In WeChat, users can message people, do mobile banking, pay for things online or in store by scanning a barcode, play games, post videos, do online shopping, hail a car and many other things.
When Musk talks about “the everything app,” he could be thinking about WeChat.
The Tesla CEO has previously expressed admiration for WeChat calling the app “great” during a town hall with Twitter employees in June. Musk said there is no WeChat equivalent outside of China.
“And I think that there’s a real opportunity to create that,” Musk told employees. “You basically live on WeChat in China because it’s so useful and so helpful to your daily life. And I think if we could achieve that, or even close to that with Twitter, it would be an immense success.”
Musk said that he wants at least a billion people using Twitter, up from 237.8 million at the end of the second quarter.
Tencent runs the ubiquitous Chinese messaging app WeChat. The company has a short form video feature with in the app and has began to monetize that through video ads in the feed. Tencent said such ads could become a “substantial” source of revenue in the future.
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One of WeChat’s biggest features is WeChat Pay. This is a feature where users can scan a barcode in a store to pay via their mobile or they can send money to friends via the chat function. WeChat Pay can also be used for purchases online.
Musk said during the town hall that he thinks that payments within Twitter would be an “interesting thing to do.”
However, super apps like WeChat haven’t really taken off in a big way in Europe, the U.S. and other western markets.
WeChat meanwhile is heavily censored in China, something Musk is unlikely to do with Twitter, given his past criticisms of the platform’s content moderation strategy which the billionaire feels has stifled free speech.
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OpenAI’s new artificial intelligence video app Sora has already grabbed the top spot in Apple‘s App Store as its number one free app, despite being invite-only.
Sora, which was launched on Tuesday, allows users to create short-form AI videos and share them in a feed. The app is available to iPhone users but requires an invite code to access.
Here’s how to snag a Sora app invite code:
- First, download the app from the iOS App Store. Note that Sora requires iOS 18.0 or later to be downloaded.
- Login using your OpenAI account.
- Click “Notify me when access opens.”
A screen will then appear asking for an access code.
Currently, OpenAI has said that it is prioritizing paying ChatGPT Pro users for Sora access. The app is only available in the U.S. and Canada, but is expected to roll out to additional countries soon, the company said.
If you do not know someone who can provide an access code, several people are sharing invite codes on the official OpenAI Discord server, as well as on X and Reddit threads.
Once you input your access, you will be able to start generating AI videos using text or images. Users are also able to cameo as characters in their videos as well as “remix” other posts.
The app is powered by the new Sora 2.0 model, an updated version of the original Sora model from last year. The video generation model is “physically accurate, realistic, and more controllable” than prior systems, the company said in a blog post.
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OpenAI now has two of the top three free apps in Apple’s App Store, and its new video generation app Sora has snagged the coveted No. 1 spot.
The artificial intelligence startup launched Sora on Tuesday, and it allows users to generate short-form AI videos, remix videos created by other users and post them to a shared feed. Sora is only available on iOS devices and is invite-based, which means users need a code to access it.
Despite these restrictions, Sora has secured the top spot in the App Store, ahead of Google‘s Gemini and OpenAI’s generative chatbot ChatGPT.
“It’s been epic to see what the collective creativity of humanity is capable of so far,” Bill Peebles, head of Sora at OpenAI, wrote in a post on X on Friday. “Team is iterating fast and listening to feedback.”
Sora is powered by OpenAI’s latest video and audio generation model called Sora 2. OpenAI said the model is capable of creating scenes and sounds with “a high degree of realism,” according to a blog post. The startup’s first video and audio generation model, Sora, was announced in February 2024.
OpenAI said it has taken steps to address potential safety concerns around the Sora app, including giving users explicit control over how their likeness is used on the platform. But some of the initial videos posted to the app, including one that depicts OpenAI CEO Sam Altman shoplifting, have sparked debates about its utility, potential for harm and legality.
“It is easy to imagine the degenerate case of AI video generation that ends up with us all being sucked into an RL-optimized slop feed,” Altman wrote in a post on X on Tuesday. “The team has put great care and thought into trying to figure out how to make a delightful product that doesn’t fall into that trap, and has come up with a number of promising ideas.”
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