Even Musk admits that X could fail

Elon Musk seems to have reached a point of no return in his project X, the app previously known as Twitter, but renamed by the entrepreneur in recent weeks. Following a technical problem that occurred on the platform over the past weekend, a bug that deleted all media content shared prior to December 2014, Musk wrote, «the sad truth is that there are no big social networks right now. We may fail, as many have predicted, but we will try our best to make there be at least one.» Commenting on the glitch that has seemingly prompted the app's owner to give up hope of a rollover, several users have pointed out that the glitch may be nothing more than just a stunt to save on storage data.

Prominent among the deleted photos is the famous 2014 Oscars selfie shared by the hostess of the edition, Ellen DeGeneres, which immediately became the most retweeted post ever with over 2 million shares. After this weekend's glitch, the photo featuring some of the most famous actors of the last decade - Jennifer Lawrence, Bradley Cooper, Meryl Streep, Julia Roberts and Brad Pitt, to name a few - has been restored on X. According to The Verge, the malfunction was not an "act of vandalism" initiated by Musk to skimp on storage space, but a problem attributable to a change implemented in 2016, with the addition of the "enhanced URL enrichment" feature.

Since Musk acquired the social platform a year ago, X has been heading for a slow and steady decline. The entrepreneur has fired thousands of Twitter employees, then sued Zuckerberg's new app, Threads, for recruiting them on his behalf. X has suffered a drastic drop in investors, reporting a 50% loss in turnover last month alone, and according to the Wall Street Journal, the company has been swamped with lawsuits and unpaid bills worth over $14 million for months. Has the end really come for Musk and his X? While the world stands by and watches what will become of the app, the entrepreneur is planning his one-on-one clash with Zuckerberg.