Elon Musk’s X to launch YouTube’s rival app for smart TVs by next week: Report

Billionaire and X’s Chief Executive Elon Musk has said that long-form videos will soon be available on smart televisions. He made the confirmation following a report in Fortune magazine.

In its exclusive report, the outlet stated that the micro-blogging site has planned to launch a TV app for Amazon and Samsung users by next week. The move is seen as a bid to compete with YouTube and recast X as a video platform.

Citing sources, the Fortune report added that the app looks “identical” to YouTube’s TV app.

Evidently, on Saturday (9th March), responding to an X user who asked when would people be able to watch their favourite X long-form videos directly on their SmartTVs, Musk said, “Coming soon.”

So far, X has not immediately responded to requests for further details on the app.

In October last year, the micro-blogging site X rolled out an early version of video and audio calling for some users. The development came after Musk announced his plan to turn the platform into a super app that offers services from messaging to peer-to-peer payments.

As part of his super-app plan, Musk has said that X could soon get approval for a money transmitter licence in New York, Reuters reported. He also said that X could receive its license in California in the next month or so adding that getting the New York approval could be “a few months away”. Apart from this, some states including Pennsylvania and Utah have already granted money transmitter licenses to X.

Earlier in January this year, X announced that it had transitioned as “now a video-first platform,” highlighting a new video feature reminiscent of TikTok’s engaging full-screen infinite scroll experience.

Twitter (re-branded as X now) was formally launched as a short-text-based platform. However, the current bid is not the first plan by X (formerly Twitter) to extend its reach from smartphones to living room television screens. Earlier, Twitter launched TV apps on at least three other occasions, Fortune report highlighted. In 2010, the first version came on the now-defunct Google TV platform, and later in 2011 on Samsung’s Smart Hub platform for its SmartTVs.

Subsequently, in 2016, the company launched video streaming apps for Amazon Fire TV, Apple TV, and Xbox One after Twitter had struck a $10 million deal to stream 10 NFL games.

The report further highlighted that as a platform, Elon Musk-helmed X has struggled to retain advertisers despite recurrent controversies ever since he bought the platform in 2022. Last month, X said it would enable advertisers to run video ads next to certain content creators. Further, under Elon Musk, X has been forging partnerships with the likes of former Fox commentator Tucker Carlson and former CNN anchor Don Lemon.