In an exposed Q&A session with staff, billionaire Tesla CEO Elon Musk discussed his intentions for Twitter, including crypto payments. Elon Musk revealed further specifics about his ambitions for how crypto could be used on the social media platform.
According to a transcript of the conversation obtained by Vox, the billionaire Tesla CEO discussed how payments, including cryptocurrency, are an “important area” for Twitter, as well as the ongoing issue of cryptocurrency frauds on the social media network.
“Money is fundamentally digital at this point,” Musk stated. “It would make sense to integrate payments into Twitter so that it’s easy to send money back and forth,” he continued, saying that “currency as well as crypto” would be included.
“If one can use it to make convenient payments, that’s an increase in usefulness,” Musk said, adding that his goal is to “maximize the usefulness of the service.” He went on to say that Twitter’s “three critical areas” are news, entertainment, and payments to make the service “so compelling that you can’t live without it and that everyone wants to use it.”
Musk’s suggestion that Twitter integrates payments is similar to his earlier argument that the platform should become a WeChat-style “super app,” which combines multiple services such as ride-hailing, food delivery, and payments into a single app.
Musk also addressed an ongoing pet peeve of his: the presence of bots and cryptocurrency fraud on Twitter, in the Q&A. “There’s quite a lot of crypto scams on Twitter,” he admitted, adding, “It’s gotten better, but there’s still a fair bit of that.”
He went on to say, “There are also people where they’re not necessarily bots, but they might be operating.” You know, one person’s operating hundreds of accounts and trying to make them look like individuals, but they’re not.”
“In order for people to have trust in Twitter, I think it’s extremely important that there be transparency,” Musk added, reaffirming his prior idea that the platform’s technology is turned open-source, “so that people can critique it, improve it, identify bugs, potentially, or bias.”
Musk proposed one approach to address the issue of fraudulent accounts on Twitter: verification through payment for the company’s Twitter Blue membership service. “Twitter would know who you are, at least from a payment standpoint,” he suggested, “by piggybacking on the payment system.” Musk has previously indicated that Twitter Blue subscriptions may be paid in Dogecoin, Musk’s favored cryptocurrency.
Musk’s on-again, off-again purchase of Twitter has become increasingly reliant on bot activity. The Tesla CEO claimed in April that his $43 million proposal to buy the social media site “cannot move forward” until Twitter gives details on how many false accounts are on the platform.
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