Ark’s Cathie Wooden bets Elon Musk will flip Twitter right into a ‘tremendous app’
Cathie Wooden, chief govt officer and chief funding officer, Ark Make investments, gestures as she speaks through the Bitcoin 2022 Convention at Miami Seashore Conference Middle on April 7, 2022 in Miami, Florida.
Marco Bello | Getty Pictures
LISBON, Portugal — Ark Make investments founder Cathie Wooden thinks Elon Musk could be onto one thing along with his imaginative and prescient for Twitter.
“He is fascinated about a brilliant app like WeChat Pay,” Wooden mentioned on the Internet Summit expertise convention in Lisbon, Portugal, Wednesday.
Wooden was referring to the digital funds service of Chinese language messaging app WeChat. It’s used usually in China for issues like prompt messaging, social media and funds.
WeChat has been touted because the archetype of a phenomenon often called “tremendous apps.” These apps act as all-in-one platforms that serve a spread of person wants spanning prompt messaging, banking and journey.
Tesla CEO Musk has already hinted at plans to make Twitter a brilliant app. Final month, he tweeted that purchasing Twitter was an “accelerant to creating X, the every thing app.”
“Keep in mind [Musk] began within the funds trade … he offered his firm to PayPal,” Wooden mentioned. “He and [Twitter co-founder] Jack Dorsey working collectively, I believe, may flip this into a brilliant app.”
Twitter may in future look extra like a digital pockets, Wooden mentioned: “So that you do all of your banking there, possibly there’s one thing they’re doing with Money App,” the web funds app developed by Dorsey’s fintech agency Sq..
“You do all of your buying there, you get your loans there — it is your financial institution department in a pocket,” she added. “I believe they will get this carried out.”
Wooden, a famous Tesla bull, mentioned Ark has invested in Twitter as a part of Musk’s $44 billion deal to take the corporate non-public.
“[Musk] actually believes in vertical integration,” she mentioned, including Twitter “can be an impressive vertical integration.”
“He already has designed and is manufacturing the final word cellular gadget, the web on wheels — it is referred to as Tesla vehicles,” she added.
Nonetheless, Musk’s takeover of the agency is the topic of great scrutiny by regulators and civil rights activists who worry he might permit dangerous content material to proliferate.
Addressing these considerations, Wooden mentioned the “darkness” of Twitter was in its “opacity” round content material moderation choices. “We did not see the algorithms and the way they have been working,” she mentioned.
She added she thinks Musk may flip Twitter into open-source software program, the place the code will be reviewed, modified and shared by the general public.
