As Twitter Moves Into Crypto, Musk Continues to Hold Two CEO Chairs – Tesla (NASDAQ:TSLA)

by Arthur · April 14, 2023

Elon Musk has pushed Twitter into the crypto arena. CNBC reported that starting Thursday, Twitter’s users can buy and sell financial assets as part of the platform’s partnership with eToro, a social trading company that comes with 32 million registered users spanning Europe, Asia and the United States.

Musk’s actions have certainly spooked investors, both Twitter and Tesla Inc TSLA‘s, we as well as some of his supporters. Many brands have left the social platform in response to the content moderation standards he introduced, but Musk said Wednesday that nearly all of those advertised have returned. Volkswagen AG VWAGY and Stellantis NV STLA is not one of them, as they have not resumed their advertising on Twitter.

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The reinvention of Twitter

After buying the platform for $44 billion last year, Musk is reinventing the platform, making it his mission to turn Twitter into a so-called “super app” that offers users financial services on top of social media. It has drastically reduced its workforce from 8,000 to 1,500 employees in a bid to achieve profitability by cutting costs. As a joke, he even briefly replaced Twitter’s signature bird logo with the doge meme last Monday, sending shares of Dogecoin up more than 20% on the day. It may not end up being as funny considering that last June Musk was accused of engaging in racketeering by promoting Dogecoin, while his lawyers filed a motion to have the lawsuit dismissed.

The concept of eToro

Using this online brokerage platform founded in Israel in 2007, Twitter users will be able to view market charts on a wide range of financial instruments, along with buying and selling financial assets such as stocks, cryptocurrencies and index funds. This rare and remarkable partnership will undoubtedly enable both sides to reach new audiences.

Cashtags

Twitter has already introduced the ability to see real-time trading data on indices like the S&P 500 and stocks like Tesla through its “cashtags” feature where users search for a ticker symbol and insert a dollar sign in front of it, after which the app provides them with price information from TradingView using an application programming interface (API).

Sits on two CEO chairs

For now, Musk seems to be managing to sit on two executive chairs, although he mentioned in his latest interview with the BBC that he sleeps on Twitter’s couch. Tesla’s investors have already shown concern over Musk’s Twitter saga, fearing that such a distraction will weaken his EV leadership. But the hotly anticipated Cybertruck was just spotted in testing, Tesla’s scaled-up production is allowing the EV pioneer to extend price-cutting discounts to boost demand, and the company just this week announced it’s building a megapack battery factory in Shanghai. So for now, he seems to be able to sit on two CEO chairs as Tesla seems to be on track and Twitter’s users have to engage in crypto trading.