Elon Musk's "everything app" falls short

Despite purchasing Twitter to serve as a foundation for his digital "super app" that would encompass messaging, commerce, and even finance, Elon Musk's vision has faced obstacles. Twitter has recently made moves to suspend emergency accounts and allow anti-trans speech, among other controversial decisions, as they pursue their own goals.

Musk's $44 billion acquisition failed to take into account the existing developer platform team at Twitter, whose purpose is to enable third-party developers to create their own apps within the platform, including games, fundraising tools, music players, and other applications permitted by the company's API.

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The Team Behind Custom Timelines Is Dismissed as Elon Musk Pursues His Super App Dream

In alignment with his vision to transform Twitter into a comprehensive "super app," the team responsible for enabling developers to construct custom timelines was planning to allow Twitter users to browse them. However, Elon Musk had other ideas.

Rather than continuing to develop the feature, Musk terminated the team, drastically limited free access to the Twitter API, and hinted at the continued development of his super app. Twitter was subsequently merged into a new entity named X Corp.

Despite this, it is unclear whether Musk's ambitious super app project is still a priority. Reports of a potential super app surfaced following the announcement of Twitter's partnership with social trading platform eToro, which will enable Twitter users to trade within the app.

Former Twitter Developer Platform Lead, Amir Shevat, Casts Doubt on Elon Musk's Super App Ambitions

According to Amir Shevat, who previously oversaw Twitter's developer platform, most super apps actively welcome third-party developers to create extensions as it is not feasible for companies to create every possible feature for their core app on their own. The success of apps such as Slack, Chrome, and ChatGPT (more recently) can largely be attributed to their easy integration with other tools, despite not being traditionally labeled as super apps.

Shevat is skeptical of Musk's sincerity regarding the creation of an everything app. He suggests that it is more of an "everything Elon wants" app, lacking the inclusivity and developer-friendly approach that is typical of successful super apps.