Elon Musk, owner of X, announced the discovery and planned restoration of Vine’s video archive, a short-form video application previously thought to be deleted.
Vine, a platform featuring six-second looping videos, was acquired by Twitter in October 2012 for $30 million. This acquisition aimed to expand Twitter’s video capabilities. However, the application was shut down in 2016 when new uploads were restricted. Vine was fully discontinued in 2017, although a user archive remained accessible for a period following its shutdown. Despite its cessation, Vine continues to maintain a presence in online cultural memory through compilations on platforms such as YouTube and through the continued careers of creators who gained initial recognition on the service.
Grok Imagine is AI Vine!
Btw, we recently found the Vine video archive (thought it had been deleted) and are working on restoring user access, so you can post them if you want.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) August 2, 2025
Musk had previously indicated interest in reviving Vine following his acquisition of Twitter in October 2022. He conducted a poll on the social media platform, asking users about bringing back Vine. Approximately 70% of respondents voted affirmatively. Reports from Axios at that time indicated that Twitter engineers were assigned to work on a Vine reboot; however, no such reboot was subsequently released.
The extent of Musk’s plans for Vine beyond archive restoration remains undefined. In his announcement regarding Vine’s archive, he also promoted Grok Imagine, an AI video-creation feature available to X Premium+ subscribers, referring to it as “AI Vine.” This statement suggests a current focus on AI-driven video content rather than user-generated human creativity. The actual delivery on the promise of restoring the Vine archive is presently uncertain, as the X post could serve to promote Grok AI.
