Twitter Inc. Merged Into X Corp. and ‘No Longer Exists’

Twitter logo and a photo of Elon Musk are displayed through magnifier in this illustration taken on Oct. 27, 2022. Dado Ruvic/Illustration/Reuters

Elon Musk-owned X Corp. has absorbed the social media platform Twitter as part of the CEO’s long-awaited move to turn it into an “everything app” similar to China’s WeChat app.

After finalizing his purchase of Twitter Inc. in October 2022, Musk discussed about a plan to gradually turn the platform into an app device that could carry out multiple tasks under the X label.

Starting in early March, a series of corporate-ownership moves ended the existence of Twitter, at least in name.

After a review of court documents from a legal battle between Twitter and former congressional candidate Laura Loomer, it was revealed by Slate on April 10 that Musk’s X Corp. had legally merged with Twitter.

“Pursuant to Rule 7.1(a)(1) of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, the undersigned counsel for Defendant X Corp., as successor in interest to named Defendant Twitter, Inc., hereby states that Twitter, Inc. has been merged into X Corp. and no longer exists. X Corp. is a privately held corporation. Its parent corporation is X Holdings Corp. No publicly traded corporation owns 10 percent or more of the stock of X Corp. or X Holdings Corp,” read the court documents from April 4.

The documents were made public during Loomer’s was lawsuit against Twitter for violating federal racketeering laws when her account was banned in 2019.

One of the publicly available court filings read: “Twitter, Inc. has been merged into X Corp. and no longer exists.”

As the “successor in interest” to Twitter, X Corp. is now the defendant in Loomer’s suit, under its parent corporation, X Holdings Corp.

Within hours of Slate’s exclusive, Musk mysteriously sent a tweet: “X.”

However, Slate did admit that an anonymous SPAC-trader tracker was the first to report the news the same day as the filing, who wrote in a tweet, “Wait, Twitter soon to be X? Merger filed with Twitter and X Corp. and X being the survivor?”

X Corp to Absorb Twitter’s Legal Costs and Identity

The merger between the two entities has yet to be officially announced, and is not expected to have any immediate effect on Twitter’s operations, but it is still the first step toward Musk’s vision.

So far, the evidence does not prove that X Corp. is the new platform that will lead to the creation of the X app and could just be a move by Musk to create a larger parent company named X to act as the controlling interest over his other companies such as Tesla and Space X.

In April 2022, Bloomberg reported that Musk registered X Holdings I, II, and III in Delaware, three separate companies designed to facilitate his purchase of Twitter.

According to the Securities and Exchange Commission, Twitter would merge with X Holdings II, but keep its name and general corporate structure while continuing to operate under Delaware law.

All of the debt and lawsuits that Musk and Twitter are facing will be carried over to the new X Corp.

X Holdings I, which is directly held by Musk, would then serve as the merged entity’s parent company, while X Holdings III would take on the $13 billion loan that a group of major lenders provided him to help cover the $44 billion acquisition of the platform.

It has been noted that the new company which absorbed Twitter under the X Corp brand is based in Nevada instead of Delaware.

According to the Nevada secretary of state’s website, Elon Musk registered two new businesses in the state on March 9: X Holdings Corp. and X Corp.

On March 15, Musk applied to merge those Nevada businesses with two of his existing companies: X Holdings I with X Holdings Corp., and Twitter Inc. with X Corp.

With the new filing, Musk now operates at least three companies in Nevada, including the X Holdings company.

Musk opened a Tesla Gigafactory near Reno, Nevada, in 2016, to produce electric vehicle batteries, and earlier this year, he announced a $3.6 billion expansion of the facility in order to manufacture electric trucks.

The state has also been doing business with Musk’s Boring Company to help build a transit tunnel built under the Las Vegas Convention Center in 2021 and the Vegas Loop, which is still under construction.

Musk’s Quest to Create a Super App Starts to Take Shape

The proposed X “super app,” according to Musk, could become similar in function to WeChat, a combination messaging, social networking, and payment app that has a billion users, mainly in China.

The Twitter CEO suggested that Twitter’s functions would have an important role to play in creating a super app.

Meanwhile, members of Congress are expected to be weary over Musk’s potential U.S. version of WeChat, especially due to the chaotic aftermath of his takeover of Twitter.

Some investors may become upset if Musk tries to merge all of his separate companies into X Holdings.

Regulatory agencies like the Federal Trade Commission are also taking a firmer stance against tech monopolies under the Biden administration, with many lawmakers not looking favorably toward the influence of big tech on privacy, national security, and politics.

Despite this, Musk’s advocacy for online freedom of speech and his recent alignment with Republicans has given him a strong base of support from many conservatives, who normally distrust most Silicon Valley tech billionaires.

For now, it appears that Twitter will still operate primarily as a social media platform.