Elon Musk, the CEO of Tesla and SpaceX, is turning his social media platform X, formerly known as Twitter, into a financial hub for users. According to The Verge, Musk revealed his plans to X employees in an all-hands call on Thursday. He expects financial and payment features to launch on X by the end of 2024, and he claims that people will be surprised by “just how powerful it is.” Musk emphasized that X will be an all-encompassing financial platform, stating, “When I say payments, I actually mean someone’s entire financial life…If it involves money, it’ll be on our platform.” He added that users won’t need a bank account to use X.
To offer financial services to users, X is currently in the process of securing money transmission licenses across the U.S. Musk hopes to obtain the additional licenses X requires within “the next few months.” He also revealed that the X/Paypal product roadmap was written by him and venture capitalist David Sacks in July 2000. Sacks served as Paypal’s first product leader and then as chief operating officer. However, Musk noted that once Paypal was acquired by Ebay in October 2002, “not only did they not implement the rest of the list, but they actually rolled back a bunch of key features.” He opined that Paypal is actually a less complete product than what they came up with in July of 2000.
Musk stated last November that X could offer “an extremely compelling money market account,” debit cards, checks, and loan services. Moreover, he previously said that X would become an “everything app.” He hopes to have the financial features available on X by the end of next year, stating, “It would blow my mind if we don’t have that rolled out by the end of next year.”
In summary, Elon Musk is transforming X into a financial hub for users, with plans to offer an all-encompassing financial platform that includes money, securities, and more. He hopes to have the financial features available on X by the end of next year and is currently securing money transmission licenses across the U.S. to offer financial services to users.