X CEO confirms video chat feature will be available on platform

Linda Yaccarino, the CEO of X (previously known as Twitter), has announced that video chat will be introduced to the platform. In an interview with CNBC’s Sara Eisen, Yaccarino stated that users will soon have the ability to make video calls without sharing their phone numbers with others on the platform. This decision aligns with Yaccarino and Musk’s goal of transforming X into a comprehensive application that encompasses various features such as extended videos, payment options, and creator subscriptions.

The announcement follows a somewhat cryptic message from X designer Andrea Conway this week. “Just called someone from X,” she wrote, followed by four exploding head emojis. Although the post did not clarify whether it was audio or video calls, it now appears that he was referring to the latter.

It’s not clear how X video calls would fill a burning consumer need: the crowded video chat environment already includes Zoom, Microsoft Teams, Google Meet, Apple FaceTime and more. But as Musk and Yaccarino try to reshape the company, they increasingly see the platform formerly known as Twitter expanding far beyond tweets into a real-time town square for media, communications and payments.

“At the core of rebranding X, we need to keep our minds open that it’s evolving into a global town square fueled by free expression where audiences gather in real time,” Yaccarino said. “And I want to dwell on that for a moment, because ‘real-time’ is the most important thing in the liveliness of X and how people interact with it. And now it’s all in one seamless interface.”

One of the platform’s first moves into new territory was long-form video. In May, the company added the Twitter Blue benefit, which allows subscribers to upload videos up to two hours long. Apple was an early adopter as it used the allocation to close out its series Silo by releasing the entire first episode on the social platform. X also recently started paying creators who have enough followers to generate revenue — with one user claiming $24,000.

Yaccarino repeated the company’s previous comments about X as a payment platform. “Payments: There’s been a lot of talk about that,” he said. “Payments between you and your friend, between you and one of your creators. So there’s been a lot going on in represented branding — a real liberation from Twitter. A liberation that allowed us to evolve past the old way of thinking and thinking and reimagining how everybody, everybody who’s listening, everybody, who are watching around the world, is changing the way we gather, entertain and how we do business together. from the ground up.”