Skip to main content

Elon Musk considers bringing Vine back from the dead

All sorts of changes could happen to the bird app now that Elon Musk has completed his purchase of Twitter. But bringing back Vine wasn’t on our bingo card. While the extinct short-form video app is beloved, bringing it back didn’t seem like it would be an immediate priority as the conpmay has other, more pressing concerns that need to be addressed.

But a recent Twitter poll from the new owner of Twitter himself seems to indicate otherwise. On Sunday night, Musk tweeted out a Twitter poll that simply asked: “Bring back Vine?”

Recommended Videos

Bring back Vine?

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) October 31, 2022

Now, it should be noted that the existence of the poll doesn’t necessarily mean Musk will certainly bring it back. But it does seem to indicate that he’s considering it. And the response to his poll from Twitter users is pretty robust: It’s already received over 3.5 million votes as of this writing and the poll still has 10 hours left.

If you’re not familiar, Vine was a short-form video-sharing app. And those videos were really short: 6 seconds. But for all their brevity, Vines often packed a punch when it came to humor and entertainment value. Vine launched in 2013, was purchased by Twitter, and then only lasted for a few years until it was shut down in 2016. But though it only lasted a short time, it was loved and it’s definitely been missed since its departure.

In fact, just this past April, co-founder and former CEO of Twitter Jack Dorsey apparently tweeted a reply to another tweet about the now-defunct app. In Dorsey’s tweeted reply, he apparently expressed regret about shutting it down.

If Musk were to bring Vine back, it’s a move that would definitely have its supporters and would play on people’s nostalgia for a simpler time in social media history. But if Vine does come back, what could it look like? An interaction between Musk and another Twitter account could give us a possible hint, as Musk seemed to agree with a suggestion from the Tesla Owners Silicon Valley Twitter account:

💯

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) October 31, 2022

The possibility of the resurrection of Vine is an interesting concept, especially when it comes to TikTok, whose current competitors keep trying to catch up to it with little success and often much backlash. Which begs the question: What if the only true competitor for TikTok is its beloved short-form video predecessor?

Anita George
Anita George has been writing for Digital Trends' Computing section since 2018. So for almost six years, Anita has written…
Tesla’s Elon Musk unveils the Cybercab robotaxi — and also the Robovan
Tesla's robotaxi.

Tesla boss Elon Musk has just taken the wraps off a prototype of the automaker’s long-awaited robotaxi.

Tesla’s CEO performed the unveiling at a special event at the Warner Bros Studios in Burbank, California, on Thursday night after being driven to the stage by the new autonomous vehicle. The "Cybercab," as Musk is calling it, sports a futuristic look and comes with butterfly doors that open upwards. The electric vehicle has ditched the steering wheel and pedals, and uses inductive charging instead of a plug. You can see the driverless Cybercab in action in the video below:

Read more
Elon Musk says ‘thousands’ of humanoid robots could be working at Tesla in 2025
Tesla's humanoid robot in 2024.

2024 Annual Stockholder Meeting

Tesla chief Elon Musk has shared new footage of the company’s humanoid Optimus robot, along with an update on how development of the robot is progressing.

Read more
Elon Musk tells Tim Cook he doesn’t want Apple’s ‘creepy spyware’
elon musk stylized image

Elon Musk has lashed out at Apple’s plan to partner with OpenAI to bring artificial intelligence features to the iPhone, telling Apple CEO Tim Cook directly to “stop this creepy spyware” and threatening to ban iPhones on the premises of his companies -- SpaceX, Tesla, and X (formerly Twitter).

Apple announced the partnership with the ChatGPT maker on the opening day of its Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC) on Monday. But just a few hours later, Musk fired off a number of X posts expressing his annoyance at the plan, calling it “an unacceptable security violation.”

Read more