New Delhi : Elon Musk, the tech entrepreneur, declared on Friday that he will no longer be using his phone number and would instead only use the social media platform X, formerly known as Twitter, for messages and audio/video calls.
“I will stop using my phone number in a few months and will only use X for texts and audio/video calls,” he wrote late on Thursday night on X.
In a few months, I will discontinue my phone number and only use X for texts and audio/video calls
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) February 9, 2024
Musk’s action is perceived as an effort to advertise X’s audio/video calling capabilities, which were released in October of last year. Ever since, he has been adamantly pushing for X to become a “everything app”.
A beta version of audio and video calling was made available to select users by X last year. “Early version of video & audio calling on X” was how Musk referred to a post on the platform that told users how to activate the feature.
Calling on X, however, doesn’t seem to be encrypted, in contrast to other comparable services like Apple’s FaceTime or WhatsApp..
According to X’s website, all accounts can receive calls but only premium subscribers can make audio and video calls. The social media platform offers enhanced call privacy, a new setting on X, that helps protect user’s privacy, according to the website.
With this setting enabled, the IP address will be hidden from people one calls and receive calls from.
The tech billionaire announced he would transform Twitter into a super-app that would provide a variety of services, including peer-to-peer payments, social networking, and messaging, after rebranding the platform as X, according to news agency Reuters.
Musk had hinted at the feature’s availability in August of last year, saying users wouldn’t require a phone number to utilize it. The features will be accessible on computers, Google’s Android operating system, and Apple’s iOS.
X announced earlier this month that it will test a new subscription model in which basic features would cost $1 (about ₹83) per year.
Users will be charged for liking, reposting, quoting, and bookmarking posts on the web version of the platform under the new “Not A Bot” subscription.
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