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Rumors have been circulating for some time that Elon Musk wants to create his own email service, one that would be a direct competitor to the world-popular Gmail. Musk has apparently confirmed such plans now, but concrete details about features and appearance are still missing.
Musk published a short message on X (formerly Twitter): “That’s exactly what we are going to do.” This was in response to a comment from one user who had written the following:
“TBH i’d just like an email address that goes into a plain txt DM inbox and abstracts the annoying & messy threads/formatting mess that is email
the main nice thing about email is that it is a universal handle system and compatible with everything so you dont have to download a new app, input a contact, or connect with someone”
So, it seems Musk has confirmed that he at least plans to create a very simple email service that uses text-only emails that arrive in the style of direct messages. Around the same time, another user commented that “X Mail would be cool” and Musk responded with yet another vague post: “Yeah. On the list of things to do.”
But that’s all we know about Musk’s potential Gmail rival. There’s no launch date yet for “X Mail” and we don’t know how important this project is for Musk or how highly it prioritizes it. But if Musk’s Tesla announcements are any indication, expect a lot of time to pass between an announcement and the actual availability of a product.
It’s worth noting that an X Mail service would be a potential data goldmine for Musk, which could then be fed into Grok, the generative AI chatbot being developed by Musk’s xAI. If that’s his long-term plan, it wouldn’t be surprising if this were high up among his priorities.
This article originally appeared on our sister publication PC-WELT and was translated and localized from German.