If they couldn’t do it, I see no reason to believe that X can.
You might want to read the Wikipedia article you’ve quoted to understand just how broad of a feature set Wechat actually has.
Microblogging (Channels): https://faq.whatsapp.com/549900560675125
I think Status is sort of like Snapchat with ephemeral microblogging?
All the typical voice/video/group video/screen share stuff.
Apparently he kept the x.com domain and never lost the desire to be a bank?
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[1] https://www.theverge.com/2017/7/10/15949862/elon-musk-x-com-...
The guys who are trying to make Messenger an everything app are probably some random MBA grads who have done nothing of significance in their life and real world.
It's more about ability to make change in real world to improve human condition. Facebook has 0 expertise when it comes to this.
Only thing Facebook has expertise is in building web pages, servers and running AB tests to make humanity keep scrolling down and stare at bullshit.
X.com*
Musk was nowhere near "kind of behind PayPal".
Musk had an attempt at an online bank that was ... not going well.
Confinity had built a prototype/MVP of PayPal. They'd already got it running. They had trademarks, everything.
Then they merged with Musk's company. Musk was the largest shareholder, and was made the first CEO.
He remained CEO for four months, most of which he spent trying to be stubborn about throwing away the entire prototype to rewrite it in Windows/IIS and Classic ASP (i.e. Visual Basic) because he didn't understand Solaris and Java.
The Board got so sick of this that a couple of days after his four month anniversary, when he'd just left for two weeks off on his honeymoon of all things, they fired him in his absence.
Apropos of the recent OpenAI clusterfuck, think about how badly you have to fuck up as a CEO of a company that you're the major shareholder in that they fire you (no "concentrating on my family"), let alone while you're on your honeymoon.
The head of Messenger when this happened was literally the ex-president of PayPal.
https://time.com/2850224/paypal-david-marcus-facebook-messen...
It's totally possible that X expands its feature set while its audience and cultural relevancy continue to decline. I would not be surprised if it stabilizes at some point as a moderately profitable medium-sized tech company. But it's never again going to be the global phenomenon it was a decade ago.
One reason it mattered so much is that no other platform could do what it did. Now, many can (including Truth Social).
The one that wants you to pay attention elsewhere.
I still think no other platform can do what Twitter does. None other has the same reach and cultural relevance. Now it's been purged, it's positioned to be a real force for good.
Niche alternatives like Truth are sideshows.
Wouldn't that be the "everyone app"?
And in any case, I assume Elon would want both.
i absolutely don't trust him to put user privacy/protection over product development. he thrives off outlandish predictions and aggressive deadlines. user protection is the first thing to go when that's the case
So the more money he spends and the more money he generates through investments with the least amount of personal involvement is going to create the most successful company that he happens to be a CEO at.
I mean, conclusively proving this either way requires A/B testing with a time machine, but I think it's hard to argue SpaceX would've managed to get Falcon 9s reusing their first stage without Musk's driving it. Reusable spacecraft does genuinely to be his thing, even if he's not doing the technical work.
Is he actually designing rocket engines himself? Of course not. Is he directing workers towards his vision? 100%.
He may be an arsehole with an ego the size of Mars but the idea that he is stupid and doesn't "do" anything is naive and wrong.
And no, he doesn't take credit for all the work, either. For example, find any NASA post-launch conference and the first words out of his mouth are always "I'd like to thank the SpaceX team and our NASA partners...", usually followed by the anecdote about how the company wouldn't exist today if not for NASA's willingness to believe in SpaceX after their first successful launch.
Ya'll really need to lay off the haterade, or at least dilute it with a little bit of reality. The dude gets a lot of (arguably well-deserved) hate, but that doesn't justify flat out inventing reasons to hate him.
Is US govt paying them $100 million a month?
https://futurism.com/the-byte/spacex-tesla-government-money-...
"SpaceX alone got a whopping $2.8 billion in government contracts last year, according to The Information, and has gotten a total of $15.3 billion from the government since 2003."
$2.8B in a year is $233M/month, and I'd wager it's gone up since then with SpaceX's ever-increasing launch cadence.
But we are talking about Starlink customers. It's definetely not 100 million a year or even close.
It's weird, though: I supremely dislike Musk, but I do think he might be a less-bad steward of that kind of tool than a lot of people/corporations.
Then again, he also throws a bunch of tantrums, so I expect he'd eventually weaponize that kind of view into everyone's lives. Probably in childish ways, not your garden-variety discrimination.
Your priorities are not someone else's priorities.
Besides you don't have to trust Elon Musk, you have to trust Elon and everyone else he trusts, and also everyone that he and they accidentally let in.