Elon Musk told a Morgan Stanley conference last month he wants Twitter to become “the biggest financial institution in the world.”
Budrul Chukrut | Sopa Images | Lightrocket via Getty Images
Twitter will let its users access stocks, cryptocurrencies and other financial assets through a partnership with eToro, a social trading company.
Starting Thursday, a new feature will be rolled out on the Twitter app. It will allow users to view market charts on an expanded range of financial instruments and buy and sell stocks and other assets from eToro, the company told CNBC exclusively.
Currently, it’s already possible to view real-time trading data from TradingView on index funds like the S&P 500 and shares of some companies such as Tesla. That can be done using Twitter’s “cashtags” feature — you search for a ticker symbol and insert dollar sign in front of it, after which the app will show you price information from TradingView using an API (application programming interface).
With the eToro partnership, Twitter cashtags will be expanded to cover far more instruments and asset classes, an eToro spokesperson told CNBC.
You’ll also be able to click a button that says “view on eToro,” which takes you through to eToro’s site, and then buy and sell assets on its platform. EToro uses TradingView as its market data partner.
“As we’ve grown over the past three years immensely, we’ve seen more and more of our users interact on Twitter [and] educate themselves about the markets,” Yoni Assia, eToro’s CEO, told CNBC in an interview.
“There is very high quality content, real-time content on financial analysis of companies and what’s happening around the world. We believe this partnership will enable us to reach those new audiences [and] connect better the brands of Twitter and eToro.”
The partnership marks a rare and noteworthy business deal for Twitter since Elon Musk took the reins as CEO after buying the platform for $44 billion last year.
Founded in Israel in 2007, eToro is an online brokerage that lets users buy and sell stocks, cryptocurrencies and index funds.
Among its most popular features is a function that allows people to mimic the trading strategies of other users. The company has more than 32 million registered users across Europe, Asia and the United States, Assia said.
Under Musk’s time as CEO, Twitter has cut staffing sharply, taking its headcount down from 8,000 to 1,500 when he took over, in a bid to reduce costs and reach profitability.
His actions have spooked advertisers, with many brands leaving the platform in light of concerns that its content moderation standards would slip.
On Wednesday, Musk said that “almost all” advertisers had returned to the app. However,
