Musk’s X appoints ‘king of virality’ in bid to boost growth

Elon Musk has appointed a product developer responsible for several successful youth-focused social media apps to a senior role at X.

Nikita Bier has been made X’s head of product three years after publicly suggesting on the platform – then known as Twitter – that it should employ him.

“I’ve officially posted my way to the top,” he wrote in a post on X announcing the role.

X has been on a rollercoaster ride since it was bought by the world’s richest man for $44bn (£38.1bn) in October 2022.

It has faced problems with advertisers, seen high profile users quit and wrestled with the emergence of new rivals Bluesky and Threads.

However, experts say Mr Bier’s appointment could boost its prospects with a key demographic.

Drew Benvie, chief executive of social media consultancy Battenhall, said Mr Bier’s experience in developing features that engage younger users, like anonymous polling, makes him hopeful his arrival could bring some “X-factor” to the platform.

“Getting that knack for what consumers want, and Gen Z users in particular, is precisely what X needs right now to turn things around, as all is not lost for the once-greatest social network,” he told the BBC.

Social media expert Matt Navarra said offering “fresh energy for younger users” in the form of more interactive, immersive and positive content would be key.

But he added that while “rebooting product thinking” could benefit the platform, translating it into material growth and retainment of younger users would require more immediate changes such as more content formats, brand safety controls and monetisation options for creators.

A former student at the University of California, Berkeley, Mr Bier grew to prominence after launching a slew of anonymous apps aimed at teens.

These included tbh (an acronym for “to be honest”), a platform allowing US high school students to participate in anonymous, friendly polls. It was acquired by Meta in 2017.

In 2023, his compliments-focused app Gas was bought by Discord, after it climbed up US app download charts.

Venture capital firm Lightspeed referred to Mr Bier as the “king of virality” when he joined them as an advisor last year.

But the means by which Bier’s now defunct app tbh reportedly targeted younger users were also somewhat controversial.

Buzzfeed reported in 2018 that it had obtained a memo in which tbh’s founders told Facebook colleagues, post-acquisition, of “a psychological trick” that could be used to amass teen sign-ups.

It included scouring Instagram for high school students’ accounts, it said.

In his post on X Mr Bier described his new employer as “the most important social network in the world”.

“While I already spend every waking hour on this app, I’ll now be spending that time helping others unlock that same value,” he said.

This would include “leveraging the power” of X’s generative AI chatbot Grok to develop “hyper-relevant timelines,” he added.

X’s usage and popularity has fluctuated under Musk’s leadership of the platform.

He said in March that the platform had more than 600m monthly active users.

But according to Pew Research Centre findings published in December, 17% of US said they use X – down from 23% in 2022 and 33% a decade ago.

The appointment of Mr Bier at X comes at a time when tech firms are jostling for top staff, namely sought-after engineers, to spearhead their AI development.

Mark Zuckerberg announced a new “superintelligence” team at Meta on Monday, after reports it had targeted OpenAI staff with $100m-plus compensation offers.

It includes Nat Friedman, former boss of software development platform GitHub, Alexandr Wang of data annotation firm Scale AI and co-creators of OpenAI’s models.

One OpenAI executive likened the company’s approach to its staff with huge compensation offers to a break-in, according to an internal memo seen by Wired.

Mark Chen, its chief research officer, reportedly said he was working with OpenAI boss Sam Altman on “creative ways to recognise and reward top talent”.

The BBC has asked OpenAI for comment.