In a tweet—er, post—from X—on August 2, 2025, Elon Musk predictably declared that the long-lost Vine video archive had finally been found. This shocking discovery led to massive campaigns to regain access for users. This announcement comes after years of rumored talk. It was widely thought that the archive was lost for good when the popular platform also went dark in 2016.
Musk announced his bid after holding a Twitter poll. Almost 70% of all those who answered indicated that they want to see the return of Vine. The platform became popular for its six second looping videos. Twitter bought it for $30 million in October 2012, but the company killed it in 2016, deciding that the platform had never realized its true potential.
As a result of Musk’s post, thousands of users are buzzing with excitement. What’s less clear is if he’s actually doing anything to get old Vines available for reposting. The original Vine platform allowed users to create and share short, engaging clips, laying the groundwork for today’s popular video-sharing apps like TikTok. Though quite popular in its short run, Twitter imposed a cap on uploads in 2016, which contributed to Vine being shuttered for good soon after.
To jumpstart video content on X, Musk recently introduced a Grok Imagine feature. It’s being called the “AI Vine” and is currently only available to X Premium+ subscribers. The newest feature is designed to keep users engaged by giving them access to sophisticated video-creation tools.
Featured speakers include TechCrunch reporter Sarah, the future of transportation and energy. As she pointed out, the tale of Vine has been central to tech reporting since it first launched. Our publication has been committed to tracing the path of Vine and its influence upon the larger digital media cultural ecology.
TechCrunch Early Stage will bring fantastic speakers and a hands-on curriculum to founders and future founders in San Francisco on October 27-29, 2025. Get ready for the future of Vine and X to be the hottest topic of discussion!
Musk is now learning the hard lessons of deep social media innovation and user engagement. At the same time, rediscovery of Vine’s video archive and potentially lead to a watershed moment for short-form content as it re-emerges on digital platforms.