Impact entrepreneur who ‘found’ Greta Thunberg launches social media challenger to X: 'As little fake news as possible'

A new European social media platform aiming to take on X and counter disinformation is being spearheaded by Swedish impact entrepreneur Ingmar Rentzhog, Impact Loop can reveal.

The platform, called W, was unveiled at the World Economic Forum in Davos on Monday. It positions itself as a European-owned alternative to Elon Musk’s X (formerly Twitter).

Rentzhog, founder of climate media platform We Don’t Have Time, told Impact Loop in a phone interview from Davos that W has been slowly in the works for sometime. It was the current zeitgeist that pushed him to accelerate the plans.

“Geopolitics has gone completely crazy recently, so we decided to bring the plan forward,” he said.

Rentzhog, often credited for bringing Greta Thunberg to the global stage, is W's initiator and a major shareholder. The social media challenger is legally a subsidiary of Stockholm-based We Don’t Have Time, though the team is spread across Europe, with offices in Berlin and Paris planned.

“We [We Don’t Have Time] own about 25% and I am chairman of the board,” Rentzhog said. “We also collaborate on resources and have lent our developers, which allows us to be very fast in this.”

Asked about the platform’s other backers, Rentzhog said that it was mainly investors who are also invested in We Don’t Have Time. The initiative is also supported by an advisory board and former ministers and business figures, primarily from Sweden.

Appoints high-profile CEO

This week, W announced the appointment of Anna Zeiter, a Swiss privacy expert and eBay’s former chief privacy officer, as the company’s CEO.

Zeiter, who holds a PhD in law from the University of Hamburg, told Impact Loop the platform would focus on reducing the presence of AI-generated content and misinformation.

“We want as little ‘fake news’ as possible,” she said.

On whether W has the resources to challenge an incumbent like X, Zeiter said the company has secured funding to operate through the rest of the year and plans a larger funding round later in 2026.

“We have a team with extensive experience from other similar companies,” she said, declining to disclose how much capital has been raised so far.

On whether W has the resources to challenge an incumbent like X, Zeiter said the company has secured funding to operate through the rest of the year and plans a larger funding round later in 2026.

“We have a team with extensive experience from other similar companies,” she said, declining to disclose how much capital has been raised so far.

Secure social?

W will require users to verify their identity and validate their profile photos to ensure they are both human and who they claim to be.

The platform says it will store user data decentrally in Europe, hosted by European companies, and comply fully with EU data protection laws. It is also structured to remain permanently under European ownership, with safeguards to prevent a sale to non-European buyers.

The platform also says it will allow users to choose how their feeds are curated – from staying within familiar networks to seeing a broader spectrum of posts – in a bid to reduce filter bubbles and the spread of misinformation.

Zeiter said W stands for “We,” while the two Vs embedded in the logo represent “Values” and “Verified.”

“The fact that W comes before X in the alphabet is certainly also a welcome coincidence,” Zeiter told Swiss business magazine Bilanz.ch.

European challenger

The launch at Davos comes amid heightened geopolitical tensions between the US and Europe, fuelled in part by president Donald Trump’s plans to invade Greenland.

It also comes amid growing friction between Brussels and US tech companies. Elon Musk’s X was recently fined €120m under the EU’s Digital Services Act, prompting Musk to call for the bloc’s abolition.

Meanwhile, a group of 54 members of the European Parliament this week called for European alternatives to dominant social media platforms, arguing that X is “no longer an open and balanced tool for political communication or journalism” following Musk’s takeover.

W is not yet widely available to users. It was introduced on January 20 at its debut event in Davos, where a promotional video was displayed, later shared on X by Washington Post reporter Ishaan Tharoor.