I know not everyone around here likes Elon but here me out. This is purely some observations I've made that relate to Elon's involvement in Bitcoin.
1999 - Two companies Confinity and X.com, launch separately and build competing financial products. 2000 - Confinity and X.com merge. The combined entity, initially called X.com, later changes its name to PayPal. 2021 - Tesla buys $1.5 billion worth of Bitcoin. 2022 - Elon buys Twitter. 2023 - Elon renames Twitter to X.com
Two days ago Twitter Payments LLC, X's payment branch got approved for a money transmitter license to be able to store, transfer, and exchange Bitcoin and other digital assets on behalf of its users.
I've read that PayPal's original mission statement was something like
Create a global currency that was independent of interference by corrupt cartels of banks and governments that were debasing their currencies.
PayPal never achieved their mission, instead becoming just another payment provider built on the fiat system.
I have a theory, maybe misguided, that Elon still holds the original vision for X.com in his desires.
Of course, Elon is also a wild card. We all know he memes about Dogecoin and has had several public negative opinions of Bitcoin. On the other hand, he did buy quite a stash of Bitcoin and there's no evidence he put a significant amount of money into Dogecoin.
What do you think? I would love to see more evidence of both sides of this story.
1348 sats \ 5 replies \ @k00b 1 Sep 2023
I think Elon doesn’t understand money yet. He works hard enough he tends to come around on things but his businesses are very dependent on fiat credit (as evidenced in his calls for lower interest rates despite record inflation).
I don’t think he’s evil though. He’s likely just powerful and wrong. Harmful but ignorant.
Anyway, I don’t think he intends to do anything special with Bitcoin. He’ll likely do whatever gives him a laugh and seems directionally correct, and the people who run his businesses think will do the best things they imagine will help the business.
X is probably still a fantasy for him but that’s kind of irrelevant. Bitcoin is what X would’ve been if Levichen could’ve figured it out.
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It certainly seems that way and Occam's razor would say it's the most likely truth.
On the other hand, it seems odd that one of the richest dudes on the planet doesn't understand money. I like to keep an open mind about the possibility he knows exactly what he's doing and just plays with people on social media like some megalomaniac.
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They’re dependent on Fiat money now but I think that in a world of Bitcoin where borrowing is expensive, his companies would win, Tesla and SpaceX provide very real value over other products in their categories and people would pay for those rather than subpar ones
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You might be right, but both of those categories are heavily subsidized and are therefore likely to not be supported without fiat money printing.
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Indeed I agree with you Elon ignorant for sure! The most depened business on fiat credit is SpaceX
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There was quite an in-depth article published recently about Elon's decades long "X" strategy which basically supports your theory.
I'll see if I can dig it up again. It was an interesting read, whether you like the guy or not.
(If anyone else saw the article, please let us know!)
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I remember the article but cannot remember where is was from. Maybe a Substack (?) but i can’t find it now.
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Maybe a Substack (?)
I think so too, but also can't find it again.
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I'm surprised more people haven't written about it to be honest. Either that or I just haven't been reading the right stuff.
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I think he wants to turn X into a western WeChat that will include payment features. It is only logical for him to include crypto in that due to the large crypto community that is highly active on twitter. Notice I use the term crypto and not bitcoin, well that is intentional because ultimately twitter probably creates their own stablecoin to use on the platform. Maybe bitcoin is one of the "cryptos" that is part of some X feature set but let's not hold out any hope that Elon will turn into Saylor 2.0.
I think we will get a Saylor 2.0 at some point (and maybe even bigger if they control a large tech company instead of a small one) but I doubt it will be Elon. Happy to be wrong.
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I feel like Elon has been leveraging Jacque Fresco's Venus Project idea, such as Hyperloop, Tesla Cars, Bots, and etc, all of these projects seemingly aiming for "Society without currency" ultimately, with everything working autonomously, thanks to AI / AGI and the state-of-the-art technologies, and reminding me of Jacque's resource-based economy idea, because Bitcoin literally can be the perpetual motion machine by AI / AGI even though it's not turing complete.
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I've never heard of that before but I will read up on it.
My first thought is that a "Society without currency" would never work because currency tends to be an emergent property of society. People would find reasons to trade and eventually find the most salable good would become the currency.
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True. But the point is that "currency" totally depends on the bank, while "money" can be independent. Ultimately, even love can be money because it's a kind of communications in a P2P manner, so long as it's not issued by the bank, I think there're some possibilities where "Society without currency" would work.
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I doubt Elon can be a BDFL, though, just like Vitalik. As @TwoLargePizzas said, he's such a wild card🫠
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Can you give a source for your paraphrased PayPal mission statement?
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However, I was sure I'd heard this a few times before in other interviews and articles. That article just happened to be the first one that came up in google when I went looking.
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Thanks. I heard that before but had no idea where I'd seen it.
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Or, Elon is a very skilled sales person creating his businesses off the back of government grants.
Arguably, without government grants he wouldn't have succeeded, or been this successful.
Look at the sectors he's setup businesses,
Electric cars = government money Solar farms = government money Space rockets = government money
Going even further with this, is he a font man tasked with creating the Wests version of the Chinese app that controls all the things in your life, including you social credit score, bank, and communications?
Let's call it X.
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This is why I think Elon actually does understand money. He understands the fiat system and how to take advantage of it to get closer to the money printer.
And yes, it's terrifying that X could become the government funded west version of WeChat.
These are all reasons we should be thinking and talking about it more.
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Not that farfetched really. I don't understand how/why buying a social media site contributes to that "mission". But Elons a narcissist so it could have very well been an ego buy. It would be good to see a billionaire step up and have the financial weight to actually make a difference. But when the system is built to benefit the rich. Honestly I see even those with the best initial intentions being caught up by greed in the end.
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My guess is it works out more cost effective to buy an existing network of customers than it does to build from scratch.
Honestly, I don't think it was a bad move considering all the options. I do think he got the timing wrong, overpaid, pissed off a lot of people and still has a long way to go. It's like trying to transform a submarine into a space ship while people are still on it.
Many have doubted Elon before but I wouldn't bet against him.
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For sure. You raise a good pov. I also wouldn't bet against him. You don't become a billionaire by dumb luck.
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He bought bitcoin when it was cool. Now he's just jealous he didn't invent it.
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Bitcoin is not cool anymore?
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The hype is gone, for now..
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I had a dream the other night I was locked up in some type of prison with Elon and some other people. We were talking about how biblical the times were, and what more is to be revealed! I looked at the other guy, talking about Elon and said "This guy is a genius. He knows things". We continued to discuss the mysteries of the universe!!! 😆
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Elon by his words wants to build something like WeChat, the everything app of China. At the same time train his AI venture with X data.
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I’d love to be wrong but I find it hard to believe that a person can reach his unique level of influence without being part of the charade. No one has their hands in as many disruptive pies as Elon, receiving as many government subsidises as he has. He is not going to work against their interests, especially not if they’re intent on governing economies across borders.
Here are my takes on his next steps:
  1. Walking doge into #2 spot - he’s going to give it unique prominence on X and make it the payment rails, because of his desire for his personal brand & impact. Bitcoin you cannot put on a leash and he knows it. This will be Bitcoin’s most prominent competitor to date, not Eth-heads or Eyeballcoin.
  2. Making all trust features require the $8pm subscription (caveats on tweets, DM protection, receiving payments, new AI search capabilities). You may otherwise need to pay for each post to be verified via a micro-transaction.
  3. Digital ID verification will become a requirement to posting or receiving currency. Payments require ID in this world, plus an uptick in bots and AIs again can make the app essentially unusable without it.
  4. Misuse of data. Mainstream VPNs will be unusable with app & web. All photos, videos etc uploaded to run facial recognition and perform mass sentiment analysis like never before. Clipping, tailoring & editing not just the feed but actual content to your personal wishes of the day. Putting “lenses” over content for different perspectives.
  5. Behavioural economics & content adaptability can reduce the need for shadow-bans or censorship.
  6. X rebrand was necessary in order to sell all this as something sexy. When really it’s just everything we have already, bundled into 1 closed & even more superficial system.
We’re now in a world where the cost of creating content is free, infinitely scalable and personalisable to every user in milliseconds. So identifying & profiling users becomes even more important than it ever was for Zuck.
With a tsunami of content building & coming… I think the jury is still out on if Elon is any different than the others. He too is likely going to pull-up the drawbridge. All in the name of “freedom”, but like WeChat 😂
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Nah, he's clueless about bitcoin.
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