Elon Mosh

South African billionaire Elon Musk is known for his desire to swallow companies and rebrand them with his own trendy vision. The Tesla CEO previously used his family fortune to acquire stakes in companies like Paypal, SpaceX and of course X (formerly Twitter). According to the official statements of the Trump Administration Cabinet Pick, the Emerald Mine Profiteer is considering buying the rights to Vine, a defunct app that predates Tiktok. This would be an important development in the world of social media, as the latter may still face a long-term ban within the United States unless the app’s parent company can agree to divest from American financial interests.

When asked by a fellow , to explore what Vine is (or was), how Elon could bring it back to compete with modern short-form video socials, and what that might mean for the general consumer.

What is Vine and why was it discontinued?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NWP3TEK-FPS

If you were old enough to own a smartphone in the early to mid-2010s, you probably remember Vine as the original short-form video sharing app. The service, which essentially acted like a proto-Tiktok, allowed users to create short clips up to six seconds long through a restrictive process that made exclusive use of the in-app camera. Over the course of a few short years, the app became home to numerous viral videos, some of which had users become famous on the Internet. Notable characters like Danny Gonzalez, Kurtis Conner, and even Jake and Logan Paul got their start through Rebe. Eventually, these names were able to transition into careers doing long-form YouTube content, television footage, and even professional boxing.

Shortly after its release to the public in 2012, Vine was acquired by Twitter for $30 million and integrated into its video sharing software. In fact, this technically means that Elon Musk already owns Vine, since he owned Twitter and all of his holdings back in 2022. The user base of millions of teenagers was simply an added advantage. Unfortunately, Jack Dorsey, CEO of then-Twitter, found it extremely difficult to monetize Vine videos and ultimately agreed to shut down the standalone app after porporating most of the key features into Twitter. On January 17, 2017 (nearly eight years to the day the initial US TikTok ban went into place), Vine was officially shut down.

Could Elon Musk really bring Vine back?

Elon Musk has publicly toyed with the idea of ​​bringing Vine since completing his purchase of Twitter. In October 2022, an Axios report suggested that the newly minted owner had asked Twitter’s key engineers to create the framework for a relaunch of the Vine app. He also asked his followers how they would feel about the resurrection of the long-dead service, which most were drawn to with positive feedback. As the possibility of an impending permanent Tiktok ban draws closer, there is more excitement than ever for the social media mogul and his tech billionaire to enter the market for short-term video content.

Of course, the real question we should be asking is, will we actually have Elon Musk’s vine launch if he makes it? Numerous reports and independent investigations have concluded that right-wing hate speech and full-on Nazi pandering on X flourished on Musk’s watch. Likewise, in the years since the 12th father of 12 advertisers have fled X, citing problems with the platform’s poor regulation. Now that Musk has aligned himself with the Trump administration and even floated the idea of ​​a Nazi victory during Trump’s inauguration, many have argued that he should not have a monopoly on social media.

The future of the vine

At this point, there is no concrete evidence that Vine will definitely return. Trump’s decision to bring the Tiktok ban on the line opens up the possibility that the Chinese app will continue to serve the American consumer base of over 170 million users, making a relaunch of Vine mostly unnecessary. Musk has also publicly toyed with the idea of ​​buying Tiktok itself, although Bytedance representatives have cited reports that they would choose him as a “pure buyer,” indicating a general reluctance to hand over the reigns. For now, Vine’s future remains uncertain, although Musk is arguably the only person who could recreate the app, as he owns the title, rights and code for the original.