Why Elon Musk's 'X App' could be an even bigger headache for D.C. than Twitter

[highplainsdem]

Long article, but worth reading in its entirety to understand what Musk is up to:

https://www.politico.com/news/2023/01/03/elon-musk-x-app-collides-washington-00075467

-snip-

The idea is a Western version of WeChat, the Chinese super-app that more than a billion people use for messaging, payments, shopping, rideshares, gaming, news and other daily activities. Musk is clearly serious about the plan: He tweeted about it this fall and pitched it to Twitter employees before he even bought the company, and reiterated the idea during a Twitter Spaces session in early December, saying “WeChat has a lot of functionality that Twitter should have.”

-snip-

If the X App developed digital wallets for users or a crypto-friendly token for payments, Musk could face opposition from banking regulators like the Federal Reserve and Treasury as well as top lawmakers on the Senate Banking and House Financial Services committees. The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau would likely weigh in on how the social network handled instances of fraud and abuse. And Musk could invite even more scrutiny from the Securities and Exchange Commission if he were to bring crypto trading to the platform.

-snip-

So an X App could track your fitness, scrape your data and log your steps, but hit a wall when it comes to the highly regulated world of the American medical system. It doesn’t mean Musk wouldn’t try — but he’d need to find partners willing to test the edges of what’s possible under the law.

-snip-

Both the Federal Trade Commission and the Department of Justice are looking more and more closely at big tech companies’ anti-competitive behavior. And While Musk’s businesses don’t currently run afoul of monopoly review by either agency, that could easily change if he were to buy a lot of other apps, said Charlotte Slaiman, the competition policy director at nonprofit Public Knowledge.

-snip-

Musk needs easily bought, easily controlled politicians to get out of the way of his ambitions, and maybe even subsidize them. And if they'll also lower his taxes, so much the better.

Which is why he's pandering to Republicans. His own political leanings and bigotry are part of that, but much of it is pragmatic.

He's already viewed as a savior by many RWNJ pundits, and Republicans in the House can't wait to use his Twitter Files exposes to help with new investigations.

[bucolic_frolic]

1. Another anti-government libertarian whack job out to make a lot of money for himself

[hildegaard28]

2. With what

Money will he buy other apps? After he's done with Twitter he will be broke.

[Emrys]

3. Handing over all the major levers of your life

to a proven idiot with grandiose visions but no eye for detail in how to bring them about, the attention span and patience of a gnat, no idea how most people live, and scant regard for online security and the petty nuisance regulations the rest of the world has to live by - appealing offer.

There's no sign he's beginning to understand Twitter itself as it currently stands, so given all this, what could possibly go wrong?

Anybody who's damn fool enough to sign up to any of this deserves whatever they get.

[tinrobot]

4. I doubt many people would trust him with their financial and health data