Elon Musk’s X launches audio and visual calls for regular users. Yay.

Elon Musk’s social media platform X, formerly known as Twitter, is set to launch audio and video calls for regular, non-premium users. It’s not exactly a feature people have been asking for, but hey… it’s coming anyway.

Previously, audio and video calls on X were only available to paid and premium users.

Linda Yaccarino, engineer and CEO of X, confirmed the news with posts on the site. However, to be clear, it’s apparently not available to everyone yet. The engineer, Enrique Barragan, indicated that they will slowly roll out the feature to non-paying users.

The tweet may have been deleted

Perhaps the functionality became broader than Barragan suggested, because when I checked, I already had access to calls even though I wasn’t a premium user. X has directions on how to use the feature, but basically you go into a DM, tap the phone icon, then choose an audio or visual call.

I do not have In fact use this feature, though, because calling a friend via Twitter seemed like a crazy idea. I don’t seem to be alone thinking that.

The tweet may have been deleted

Frankly, this seems like a feature that people can only use by accident while scrolling through a DM. It is still unclear what value is added by calling through X instead of the myriad services that already exist. Maybe the only potential reasoning I saw that you don’t need to share a phone number – but, again, that’s already possible with other services.

In short, making a phone call on X is now reserved for non-paying users, whether anyone really wants it or not.