Elon Musk Says Dating Will be Added to X Platform

X, the social media platform formerly known as Twitter, will be expanded to include a dating app feature.

According to Fox Business, Musk recently held a company-wide meeting on the anniversary of his acquisition of Twitter to announce where he sees the platform headed. At the meeting, employees report that he said that X will become a “fully fledged” dating app in 2024, according to Business Insider.

At the meeting, he also mentioned that banking and transaction features will be added to the app in the near future, referring to these two major moves as being part of the new “everything app” he envisions for X.

Part of this drive to branch out, according to Business Insider, is that Musk is looking for additional revenue streams. His $44 billion acquisition has lost as much as $20 billion since he took charge of the company. Adding services where he can collect subscription and transaction fees could help boost the bottom line.

The rebrand to X could have hurt the company further, according to Forbes. But if Musk succeeds in adding these additional features, the platform could get a boost.

Another complication is that the dating app market seems to be in freefall. The two biggest players, Tinder and Bumble, have both reported lower-than-expected earnings so far this year, and Bumble’s founder Whitney Wolfe Herd stepped down from the platform as CEO, making room for Slack’s former CEO to take the helm. Both Tinder and Bumble saw their stock prices drop in response to projected revenue declines for Q4.

The question is – if X enters the dating market, will it be able to leverage its huge audience and gain more subscribers, or will people be unwilling to pay for services on X? Currently, fewer people want to pay for dating app subscriptions and services, and are looking to other platforms like Strava and LinkedIn and Instagram to connect with people.

According to NDTV, at the all-company meeting, Musk said a person’s posts on X could be “the biggest indicator” of whether they would be someone you’d want to hire. He added: "I think the same is true also on the romantic front. Finding someone on the platform. Obviously, I found someone and friends of mine have found people on the platform. And you can tell if you're a good match based on what they write," he told staff, according to NDTV.

CEO Linda Yaccarino then asked if X Dating was around the corner. Musk responded that there’s already action happening in that area, because X “might be able to improve the dating situation.” He added: “Part of it is how do you discover interesting people? Discovery is tough.”