On Tuesday, a software engineer at the company wrote on the platform that “all DMs will soon be gone.” But the former Twitter isn’t getting rid of messaging; the company is said to be replacing it with a full-fledged chat system called XChat.
X software engineer Zach Varunek responded to another user who asked if XChat would replace DMs. “No, not like message requests, but like the whole DM is going to disappear soon,” the engineer replied. Engadget has reached out to Varunek to inquire about the timeline for this feature, and we’ll update this article if we hear back.
This isn’t the first XChat rumor we’ve seen. Earlier this year, the @xDaily account posted a screenshot in which the XChat icon appeared on the sidebar of the platform instead of the Messages icon. In February, the company’s owner Elon Musk wrote that in a few months he would give up his phone number and use X only for texts and calls. This month, @swak_12 (via Android Headlines) posted screenshots showing a PIN verification screen (similar to secure messaging apps like Signal) for XChat.
Another alleged leak, posted Wednesday by @P4mui, contains more screenshots and a list of XChat features, including fully encrypted end-to-end messaging, file transfer, and the ability to unread messages and delete individual messages for all users.
