This is In Conversation from Apple News. I'm Sam Sanders in for Shumita Basu. Today, what the

transformation of Twitter to X reveals about the future of social media.

On March 21st, 2006, Jack Dorsey, one of the creators of Twitter, sent the first tweet.

Back then, the platform was just a company name and a prototype, an idea about a new way to communicate online.

Over time, it grew into something much, much bigger, with hundreds of millions of

users all across the globe. And while it was never perfect, many people saw Twitter as an online

public square, a place to share and connect with people you'd never met. In 2022, Elon Musk bought

Twitter for $44 billion.

He then cut the staff by about 80 percent, dismantled many of the platform's content moderation

systems, incorporated the AI chatbot Grock into the platform, and got rid of Twitter's

name.

Twitter was such a brand, but that brand died when Elon took over.

It completely changed, and it's X now.

That's Ryan Mack.

He's a tech reporter for the New York Times.

He wrote the book Character Limit, how Elon Musk destroyed Twitter,

with his colleague at the Times, Kate Conger.

Kate says that while X is a fundamentally different place now, it's still an active and

important part of the internet.

It's transformed into a space that really aligns with Elon and his interests.

And I think that he views this as a success story.

And I think for that one particular user of X,

...