Is Elon Musk a genius or a dud?

When he bought Twitter in October last year, Elon Musk set out a bold vision for the bird app. The billionaire said his acquisition was ‘an accelerant’ towards building ‘X, the everything app,’ emulating the functionality of China’s WeChat, with which users can transfer money, play video games, shop online and more. But so far, beyond registering a holding company called X Corp, there are few signs of progress towards this so-called everything app.

Musk’s fiercer critics warn he may end up with a nothing app: after gutting most of the company’s workforce and redesignating blue ticks to denote paid subscription instead of notoriety, Twitter’s user experience is rapidly deteriorating. Many users may be tempted to leave if an alternative arrives on the scene.  

What once felt like a free and open public forum has become one in which those who pay the most get to shout the loudest, while others with more thoughtful expressions are pushed to the wayside.