Company type | Subsidiary |
---|---|
Industry | |
Predecessor | Twitter, Inc. |
Founded | March 9, 2023 [a] |
Founder | Elon Musk |
Headquarters | |
Area served | Worldwide |
Key people | |
Services | X (formerly Twitter) |
Revenue | US$2.5 billion (2023) [2] |
Number of employees | c. 1,500 (August 2023) [3] |
Parent | X Holdings Corp. |
Subsidiaries | X Payments LLC [4] |
Website | about |
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Personal Companies Politics In popular culture
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X Corp. is an American technology company headquartered in Bastrop, Texas. [5] Established by Elon Musk in 2023 as the successor to Twitter, Inc., it is a wholly owned subsidiary of X Holdings Corp., which is itself mostly owned by Musk. The company owns the social networking service X (formerly known as Twitter), and has announced plans to use it as a base for other offerings. While the official name of the company and social network is now X, many users and media outlets continue to refer to it as Twitter. [6] [7] [8]
In April 2022, filings submitted to the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) revealed Musk had formed three corporate entities in Delaware, one was X Corp, another was X Holdings and another was X Holdings Corp. According to the filings, one of the entities was to merge with Twitter, Inc., while another was to serve as the parent company of the newly merged company. A third entity would then help take on a US$13 billion loan provided by various large banks to acquire Twitter. [9]
The name "X" dates back to X.com, an online bank co-founded by Musk in 1999. In March 2000, X.com merged with competitor Confinity to create PayPal. [10] Musk considered forming a holding company named "X" for Tesla, Inc. and SpaceX in August 2012. [11] In July 2017, Musk reacquired the domain X.com, for an undisclosed amount, from PayPal. [12] Musk reaffirmed his support for the name "X" in December 2020, replying to a Twitter user who renewed calls for Musk to form a new holding company under that name, although he dismissed the idea of X acquiring his businesses. [13]
The concept for X solidified in October 2022, when Musk tweeted that acquiring Twitter is "an accelerant to creating X, the everything app". According to Musk, Twitter would accelerate the creation of X by "3 to 5 years". Musk expressed interest in creating an app similar to WeChat—a Chinese instant messaging, social media, and mobile payment app—on a podcast in May 2022. [14] In June, Musk told Twitter employees that Twitter is a "digital town square" that should be all-encompassing, like WeChat. [15] In a Morgan Stanley conference in March 2023, Musk touted X once again as the potentially "biggest financial institution in the world". [16] On October 27, 2022, Musk acquired Twitter for $44 billion, and subsequently became its CEO. [17]
On March 9, 2023, Musk registered X Corp. in Nevada. On the same day, Musk registered the artificial intelligence (AI) company X.AI Corp. [18] Later that month, Musk applied to merge X Holdings with X Holdings Corp. and Twitter, Inc. with X Corp. [9] In the filing, Musk revealed that X Holdings Corp. had $2 million in capital, but X Holdings Corp. would serve as the parent company for X Corp. [19] In a company-wide email that month, Musk announced that Twitter employees would receive stock in X Corp. [20]
In an April 2023 court filing for an ongoing lawsuit filed by political activist Laura Loomer against Twitter and its former CEO Jack Dorsey, Twitter, Inc. notified the court that it had been consolidated into X Corp., a Nevada corporation based in Carson City. A similar filing was made in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida. [21]
On May 11, 2023, Musk tweeted that he had found his replacement as Twitter and X Corp.'s CEO. The next day, on May 12, 2023, he named Linda Yaccarino as the new CEO, adding that she "will focus primarily on business operations, while I focus on product design & new technology". [22] Musk said he would transition his role to executive chairman and chief technology officer. [23] Yaccarino succeeded Musk on June 5, 2023. [24]
At the end of May 2023, Fidelity Investments estimated the company's value at $15 billion. [25] This was later increased to a value of $27 billion by July, [26] [27] and up to about $28.5 billion by the end of August. [28] [29]
The company erected a giant illuminated "X" on the roof of its San Francisco headquarters in July 2023 without obtaining required permits. 24 complaints were filed by neighbors concerned about the bright flashing light and structural integrity. Inspectors were twice denied roof access, and the city cited the company for a building code violation. X removed the sign after a few days. [30] [31]
In August 2023, CEO Linda Yaccarino stated that she has "operational autonomy" under owner Elon Musk to run the business, and that she is involved in everything that goes into running the company. [32] [33] Yaccarino also opened up on the reasoning behind Twitter's "controversial" name change to X, [34] wherein she stated that the rebranding was essentially a "liberation" from Twitter. Yaccarino also went on to say that if users had stayed with Twitter, then changes would only be "incremental" and that with X, they think about "what's possible". [35]
In October 2023, the marketing agency X Social Media filed a lawsuit against X Corp. alleging a violation of its trademark of the letter X. [36]
On July 16, 2024, Elon Musk posted that X Corp. would move its headquarters from San Francisco to Austin, Texas, after posting that SpaceX would move its headquarters from Hawthorne, California to Starbase, Texas. [37] This was a direct response to California Governor Gavin Newsom signing a law that bans schools in the state from notifying parents of a child's gender identification change. [38]
On August 17, 2024, X Corp. ceased operations in Brazil. The X platform was blocked nationwide shortly after and unblocked on October 8, 2024. [39] [40]
On September 13, 2024, X Corp. moved its headquarters from San Francisco to Bastrop, Texas, according to records filed with the California Secretary of State. [41] [42] [43]
At the end of September 2024, Fidelity's estimation of the value of X shares reflected a decline of 79% from when Musk had acquired Twitter two years earlier. [44]
Mahmoud Reza Banki joined the company as its first publicly announced chief financial officer in November 2024. [45]
On June 1, 2023, the Center for Countering Digital Hate (CCDH) reported that X, formerly named Twitter, had "failed to act" on 99% of hate posted by Twitter Blue subscribers. The CCDH then described several tweets containing such hateful messages that allegedly contained "racist, homophobic, neo-Nazi, antisemitic or conspiracy content". [46] [47]
In response, X Corp. mentioned that the platform encouraged diversity and free speech, stating that "more than 99.99% of post impressions are healthy" in a blog post. [48] The post further mentioned that the CCDH was spreading "false and misleading claims" that might have negative financial repercussions as it encouraged advertisers to halt investment on X. [49] The blog also further described the CCDH as a "scare campaign" working continuously to prevent "public dialogue", alleging that the CCDH's research utilized metrics that were purposely put "out of context to make unsubstantiated assertions about X". [50] X then filed a legal claim against CCDH and the European Climate Foundation, which it alleged was providing the information used in CCDH's research, and that X denied all claims stated by the CCDH. [51] [52] [53] [54]
On March 25, 2024, District Judge Charles Breyer determined the case was a strategic lawsuit against public participation and granted CCDH's special motion to strike X Corp.'s suit, writing that "This case is about punishing the Defendants for their speech". [55] [56]
On November 16, 2023, Media Matters for America, a left-leaning watchdog group, published a report stating that X was placing ads for various companies including Apple, IBM, and Oracle, alongside pro-Nazi content. [57] Published following Musk's endorsement of an antisemitic conspiracy theory, major advertisers like Microsoft and Apple left the platform, leading to an estimated loss of around $75 million by the end of 2023. [58] This led to a lawsuit by X Corp. against Media Matters, alleging that they had "exploited" the platform into making the ads appear the way they did as a result of excessive scrolling and curating its feed with "fringe" content. [59] [60]
In August 2024, Omid Kordestani, former executive chairman of Twitter (now X Corp.), filed a lawsuit against X Corp. in California Superior Court. Kordestani alleges that Elon Musk is refusing to cash out more than $20 million worth of shares owed to him as compensation for his service. This suit follows a March 2024 lawsuit by four former Twitter executives, who claim Musk withheld over $128 million in severance payments after their dismissal. [61]
Space Exploration Technologies Corp., commonly referred to as SpaceX, is an American space technology company headquartered at the SpaceX Starbase near Brownsville, Texas. Since its founding in 2001, the company has made numerous advancements in rocket propulsion, reusable launch vehicle, human spaceflight and satellite constellation technology. By the late 2010s, SpaceX had become the world's dominant space launch provider, its launch cadence rivaling that of the Chinese space program and eclipsing all those of its private competitors. SpaceX, NASA and the United States Armed Forces work closely together by means of governmental contracts.
Elon Reeve Musk is a businessman known for his key roles in the space company SpaceX and the automotive company Tesla, Inc. His other involvements include ownership of X Corp., the company that operates the social media platform X, and his role in the founding of the Boring Company, xAI, Neuralink, and OpenAI. Musk is the wealthiest individual in the world; as of December 2024, Forbes estimates his net worth to be US$344 billion.
Tesla, Inc. is an American multinational automotive and clean energy company. Headquartered in Austin, Texas, it designs, manufactures and sells battery electric vehicles (BEVs), stationary battery energy storage devices from home to grid-scale, solar panels and solar shingles, and related products and services.
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The Center for Countering Digital Hate (CCDH), formerly Brixton Endeavors, is a British-American not-for-profit NGO company with offices in London and Washington, D.C. with the stated purpose of stopping the spread of online hate speech and disinformation. It campaigns to deplatform people that it believes promote hate or misinformation, and campaigns to restrict media organisations such as The Daily Wire from advertising. CCDH is a member of the Stop Hate For Profit coalition.
Twitter, Inc. was an American social media company based in San Francisco, California, which operated and was named for its flagship social media network prior to its rebrand as X. In addition to Twitter, the company previously operated the Vine short video app and Periscope livestreaming service. In April 2023, Twitter merged with X Holdings and ceased to be an independent company, becoming a part of X Corp.
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