• by Colin Kirkland , July 1, 2025

X has named Nikita Bier as its head of product, hoping that Bier can help steer the struggling social media platform toward success using his skills as a viral app designer.

Bier is best known in the tech community as the founder of “Gas” and “TBH” – two teen-driven apps that were acquired, respectively, by Discord and Facebook in 2017 and 2023. Both apps gained millions of users in a short period of time, and have been used as case studies in viral marketing strategy. 

The app designer has also worked on other app projects, as well as blockchain technologies by way of a venture partner at Lightspeed and an adviser to the Solana Foundation. 

In a recent post on X, Bier wrote: “I’ve officially posted my way to the top,” citing a message he sent to X owner Elon Musk in 2022 asking to be hired as “VP of Product.”

At that time, Bier believed that with his help, X could become “the leading messenger, groups app & content creation tool.”

Now, three years later, the app designer says he will be focusing on leveraging the power of X’s AI chatbot Grok “to create hyper-relevant timelines” and “help people understand everything that’s happening.”

Shortly after being hired, Bier also noted that “someone should fix notifications” and even shared a prototype of Grok he developed during his interview with X.

With X losing users and attempting to build out its video-first functionality, in-app payments, and a long-term goal of becoming an “everything app,” Bier could help the platform compete against Meta’s Threads app by boosting X’s cultural relevance and overall user experience.