IMO, entirely expected and predictable. And desirable.
He was one of the founders of PayPal. And he has always said he seeks to turn Twitter into “App X” a sort of “be all” app for everyone. So I’d expect much more than just a payment process added to it. I’d expect he’d include a lot of new features over time to make it more competitive with the likes of Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, even maybe Yelp type reviews and if I’m stretching a bit link up with a ride-share and delivery service too. And things I haven’t thought of because it’s not my area I can barely use this website I don’t use those other social media apps. Not even Twitter.
Now for $44 billion he probably could have built it all from scratch but with this buy he got himself what 300 million built in customers? This pales in comparison to Facebook (2.5 billion users), Insta and Tik Tok, but it’s a start. More features, he’ll attract more users and also monetize them for profit. He surely wants to earn that $44 million back and he can’t do an IPO for, what, 5 or 7 years after taking it private? So he has time to build it up and make it much more valuable, then cash out.
I wonder how much money bots will spend ?
to be realistic, musk almost has to charge some kind of nominal fee to keep bots off the platform, but if you have to “know your customer” probably you can waive the fee, and profit too