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Elon Musk has appointed Nikita Bier, a product developer renowned for creating successful youth-oriented social media applications, to a key leadership position at X.
Bier assumes the role of head of product at X, three years after publicly suggesting on the platform – then known as Twitter – that the company should hire him.
“I’ve officially posted my way to the top,” he announced in a post on X.
Since its acquisition by Elon Musk for $44 billion in October 2022, X has experienced a turbulent period.
The platform has faced challenges with advertisers, witnessed the departure of high-profile users, and contended with the emergence of rival platforms such as Bluesky and Threads.
However, experts suggest that Bier’s appointment could bolster X’s prospects within a crucial demographic.
Drew Benvie, CEO of social media consultancy Battenhall, noted that Bier’s expertise in developing features that resonate with younger audiences, such as anonymous polling, gives him hope that Bier’s arrival could bring a certain “X-factor” to the platform.
“Capturing what consumers want, particularly Gen Z users, is precisely what X needs right now to turn things around. All is not lost for what was once the greatest social network,” he told the BBC.
Social media expert Matt Navarra stated that offering “fresh energy for younger users” through more interactive, immersive, and positive content would be essential.
However, he added that while “rebooting product thinking” could benefit the platform, translating this into substantial growth and retaining younger users would necessitate more immediate changes, such as a wider range of content formats, enhanced brand safety controls, and monetization options for creators.
Bier, a former student at the University of California, Berkeley, rose to prominence after launching a series of anonymous applications targeted at teenagers.
These included tbh (an acronym for “to be honest”), a platform that allowed US high school students to participate in friendly, anonymous polls. Meta acquired the platform in 2017.
In 2023, Discord purchased his compliments-focused application, Gas, after it topped US app download charts.
Venture capital firm Lightspeed referred to Bier as the “king of virality” when he joined them as an advisor last year.
However, the methods by which Bier’s now-defunct app tbh reportedly targeted younger users have also been met with some controversy.
Buzzfeed reported in 2018 that it had obtained a memo in which tbh’s founders told Facebook colleagues, post-acquisition, about “a psychological trick” that could be used to generate teen sign-ups.
This reportedly included scouring Instagram for high school students’ accounts.
In his post on X, 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 stated.
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 have fluctuated under Musk’s leadership.
He stated in March that the platform had more than 600 million monthly active users.
However, according to Pew Research Center findings published in December, 17% of US teens use X – down from 23% in 2022 and 33% a decade ago.
The appointment of Bier at X comes at a time when tech firms are vying for top talent, particularly sought-after engineers, to lead their AI development efforts.
Mark Zuckerberg announced a new “superintelligence” team at Meta on Monday, following reports that it had targeted OpenAI staff with compensation offers exceeding $100 million.
This team 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 massive compensation offers to a break-in, according to an internal memo seen by Wired.
Mark Chen, its chief research officer, reportedly stated that he was working with OpenAI boss Sam Altman on “creative ways to recognize and reward top talent.”
The BBC has requested comment from OpenAI.
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