Elon Musk has been toying with the idea of using Twitter to compete against the likes of PayPal. Allowing the platform to become a solution for sending and receiving payments and eventually becoming a similar full-on online banking solution. It wouldn’t be hard to picture this happening since Elon was one of the original co-founders of PayPal, so it isn’t like this would be new territory.
Now, with the recent collapse of Silicon Valley Bank (based in Santa Clara, CA) last Friday–due to poor investing by the bank (that it would have recovered from) and panic from clients who started pulling money out of their accounts due to advice from investment firms, leading to a complete collapse of the system before the feds stepped in to freeze everything (oops)–the multi-CEO may be open to considering another potential purchase.
I’m open to the idea
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) March 11, 2023
Elon took to Twitter to say that he was open to the idea when another Twitter user mentioned that Twitter should buy SVB so that it could become its own bank. Something that would propel the company forward with such new ambitions as competing against PayPal with a whole new payment platform for the internet to dive into.
Of course, this is just a reply to a Tweet that he was “open to the idea” and shouldn’t be taken too seriously unless he actually starts to build out a plan. That, and anyone should take great caution before becoming involved with something like this to make sure they don’t inherit a mess that could become costly to cleanup. However, that hasn’t stopped the internet from running with the idea that he might actually do it (and with Elon, you never know.
What are your thoughts on Twitter becoming its own digital bank? Would you sign up for its services? Does it seem like a fitting direction for the social platform or a abstract idea taken too far? Feel free to take to the comments below with your thoughts.
