New Delhi, Feb 23 (IANS): Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk on Friday threatened Satya Nadella-run Google, saying his X (formerly Twitter) platform will soon have an alternative to the Gmail service.

When asked on X if he is planning an email service, the billionaire said the service is coming soon.

Nate McGrady, a member of X’s Engineering and Security team, had asked when XMail would be launched.

“Coming,” replied Musk, setting the tech industry on fire as Google faced rumoured plans to sunset Gmail via a manipulated image that began circulating on social media platforms.

A follower replied: “Lost trust in Gmail. Time to make the switch to Xmail asap!”

Another commented that “I will use my Gmail as how I use my Hotmail now, for junks”.

Earlier in the day, an image floated around on X that appears to show an email from Google about it “sunsetting” Gmail in August 2024.

The email turned out to be fake and “Gmail is here to stay,” said Google.

The company is shutting down the basic HTML view this year and the users will be switched to the service’s “Standard” view.