X/Twitter: Stayin’ Alive with NFT, Cryptocurrency, and “One App to Rule Them All”

New X CEO Elon Musk had been aggressively cutting costs since he acquired Twitter in October 2022. Meanwhile, his move to restore banned accounts had eliminated a host of key advertisers, causing its main source of revenue – advertising earnings – to plummet as they suspended their advertising activities on the platform.

X had tried various ways and means to augment its revenue, and had begun backing all things related to cryptocurrencies, as well as providing support for non-fungible tokens (NFTs).

Musk subsequently hired former NBCUniversal global advertising and partnerships chairman Linda Yaccarino to take over as X CEO. X further resorted to filing lawsuits against advertisers that had halted advertising on the platform to compel them to continue advertising.

Meanwhile, Musk was determined to refashion X into a super app not unlike WeChat. However, X had thus far only added a few new functions like a chatbot, job search, and audio/video calls enablement. The much-vaunted financial services function had as yet not materialised.

Furthermore, Musk had stopped providing support for NFT profile pictures in a reversal of X’s earlier support for NFTs prior to his acquisition. Paid subscribers thus could no longer set an NFT as their profile picture.

Could X really abandon the advertisement-based business model which other social media companies had thrived on? And would users bite should X be able to turn its platform into the everything app which Musk envisioned?

This case is intended for use in a digital business course at undergraduate or postgraduate levels. The case discussion should enable the students to achieve the following learning objectives: discuss the sensibility of X’s move to embrace cryptocurrency advertising, evaluate social media’s influence in promoting NFTs, study X’s decision to remove support for NFTs, discuss why X might not be as successful as WeChat, and propose how X can better augment its revenue.

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