Elon Musk has reportedly outlined his vision for Twitter: a $250 billion payments company.
Musk recently told employees that he sees Twitter’s current value of about $20 billion growing to more than 10 times that amount, thanks to plans to make the social media app a major part of users’ financial lives, the Wall Street Journal (WSJ) reported Saturday (April 1).
The report points out that these plans are reminiscent of Musk’s roots at the company that would one day become PayPal, though a $250 billion Twitter would dwarf PayPal’s valuation of about $85 billion (and put it in the same ballpark as JPMorgan Chase and Bank of America).
“I think it’s possible to become the largest financial institution in the world,” Musk said at a Morgan Stanley conference last month, according to the WSJ.
According to the WSJ report, Musk spoke at the conference about his goal to diversify the struggling social media platform’s advertising business, which has historically accounted for much of its revenue.
In his address to employees, Musk announced the launch of an employee stock plan and said he sees a “clear but difficult path” to one day be worth more than $250 billion.
Earlier this year, Twitter reportedly began applying for regulatory licenses in the U.S. while developing software to add payment capabilities to its platform.
As reported at the time, Musk has found himself in a bind as advertisers have abandoned the platform in droves since its acquisition due to concerns over content moderation and related issues. Advertising revenue was in the $5 billion per year range, but it was reported that the platform had lost up to half of its advertising commitments by November.”
Last year, shortly before the deal to buy Twitter was finalized, Musk tweeted that buying the company was “an accelerator for building X, the app for everything.”
As noted at the time, for the Twitter acquisition to work the way he envisions, Musk will have to find a way to either grow the company or incorporate it into a larger “X” super-app network.
“Twitter probably accelerates X by 3 to 5 years, but I could be wrong,” Musk said.