X

X, formerly Twitter (2006–2023), is an online social media platform and microblogging service that distributes short messages of no more than 280 characters. The service was influential in shaping politics and culture in the early 21st century. The successor to Twitter, X Corp., is a wholly owned subsidiary of X Holdings Corp., which is owned by South African–born American entrepreneur Elon Musk.

Current business structure

In April 2022, a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission expressed the intent for Twitter to merge with one of Musk’s corporate entities, X Holdings. After Musk completed the deal to acquire Twitter in October 2022, he took steps to merge Twitter with X and rebrand the company.

However, Musk used a different company, X Corp., which he registered in Nevada in March 2023, to merge with Twitter. He also registered two other companies in Nevada in the same month: X Holdings Corp. (the new parent of X Corp.) and X.AI Corp. The merger between Twitter and X Corp. took place in April 2023. In a court filing in California in early April 2023, it became clear that Twitter, as a company, “no longer exists.”

Today, X is primarily run as a social media platform, although Musk has expressed an interest in making it an “everything app,” including for financial transactions, similar to China’s WeChat.

2004–2008: Twitter’s origins and founding

Twitter emerged from the podcasting venture Odeo, which was founded in 2004 by Evan Williams, Biz Stone, and Noah Glass. (Williams and Stone had previously worked at Google, and Williams created the popular Web authoring tool Blogger.) Apple announced in 2005 that it would add podcasts to its digital media application iTunes. Odeo’s leadership felt that the company could not compete with Apple and needed a new direction.

Odeo’s employees were asked about any interesting side projects they had, and engineer Jack Dorsey proposed a short message service (SMS) on which one could share small, blog-like updates with friends. Glass proposed the name Twttr. Dorsey sent the first message (“just setting up my twttr”)—called a tweet—on March 21, 2006; the completed version of Twitter debuted in July 2006.

Seeing a future for the product, Williams, Stone, and Dorsey bought out Odeo and started Obvious Corp. in October 2006 to develop it further. Interest in the platform sharply increased after it was presented at the South by Southwest music and technology conference in Austin, Texas, in March 2007. The following month, Twitter, Inc. was created as a corporate entity thanks to an infusion of venture capital, and Dorsey became Twitter’s first chief executive officer (CEO). In 2008 Williams ousted Dorsey as CEO, and two years later Williams was replaced as CEO by chief operating officer Dick Costolo.

2009–2013: From novelty to news source

Twitter’s social networking roots were obvious in April 2009, when actor Ashton Kutcher emerged as the victor in a race with CNN to become the first Twitter user to collect more than a million followers. Although celebrity “e-watching” remained a significant draw to the service, businesses soon began sending tweets about promotions and events. Political campaigns discovered the value of Twitter as a communication tool.

• The 2008 U.S. presidential election saw Barack Obama dominate his opponent, John McCain, in the social media sphere, amassing almost four times as many Myspace friends and more than 20 times as many Twitter followers. This development ensured that future candidates would include a social networking presence in their media strategies.
• On January 15, 2009, a tweet by commuter ferry passenger Janis Krums broke the story of the successful water landing of US Airways flight 1549 on the Hudson River in New York City. A hastily snapped camera phone image of passengers disembarking the half-submerged aircraft established the platform as a breaking news source.
• In June 2009, as state media sources reported that President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad had secured an easy victory, supporters of opposition candidate Mir Hossein Mousavi took to the streets in a series of demonstrations that eventually provoked a crackdown by the government, in which some demonstrators were injured or killed. The topic #IranElection became one of the most-followed on Twitter, as Mousavi supporters coordinated protests and posted live updates of events throughout the Iranian capital.
• Following the earthquake that struck Haiti in January 2010, Twitter reaffirmed its role as a powerful tool for the dissemination of information. It became an effective fundraising platform when the Red Cross launched a mobile giving campaign that surpassed all expectations.

In 2009, Twitter also introduced a verification badge—a blue check mark—for accounts of famous people. St. Louis Cardinals manager Tony La Russa had sued Twitter over a parody account, and in response, Twitter announced that it would verify accounts of government agencies, public officials, and celebrities.

2023–present: The Elon Musk acquisition and aftermath

In 2022, Twitter announced Elon Musk would acquire it and that Musk was to become the company’s sole owner. But, in an apparent case of buyer’s remorse, three months later Musk announced that he would be withdrawing his bid for Twitter, citing concerns over bot accounts and claiming that the company was in “material breach of multiple provisions” of the purchase agreement.

Controversy during the Musk era

After the acquisition, Musk disbanded Twitter’s content-moderation body and reinstated many banned accounts, most notably that of former U.S. President Donald Trump, who had been suspended after the U.S. Capitol attack on January 6, 2021. Advertising revenue fell sharply as many companies withdrew their ads from the platform, which has been completely rebranded to erase the previous branding related to Twitter. “Tweets” are now referred to as “posts.”

In 2023, X and Musk became embroiled in controversy about how many of his changes have made the platform a less reliable information resource. One accusation of misinformation is related to the Israel-Hamas War. European regulators issued a warning to Musk and insisted that he respond with how he is battling illegal misinformation on the website.

Musk has claimed to be a “free speech absolutist” in the past, but some of his decisions have had the effect of throttling posts critical of him and the changes to the platform. Criticisms of X under Musk include concerns that hate speech and violence have been more likely to spread, especially with Musk’s move to change how the “block” and “mute” functions work. He has been accused of enabling cyberbullying by changing how these functions work.