Billionaire Elon Musk has revealed that he is turning his social media platform X, formerly Twitter, into an all-encompassing financial platform. “When I say payments, I actually mean someone’s entire financial life … If it involves money. It’ll be on our platform,” he claimed, emphasizing: “You won’t need a bank account.”
Elon Musk’s Plan for X
Elon Musk, CEO of Tesla and Spacex and owner of social media platform X (formerly Twitter), revealed to X employees in an all-hands call on Thursday that he is transforming X into a financial hub for users, The Verge reported, citing an audio recording of the meeting it had obtained.
Noting that he expects financial and payment features to launch on X by the end of 2024, Musk claimed that people will be surprised with “just how powerful it is.” The billionaire described:
When I say payments, I actually mean someone’s entire financial life … If it involves money. It’ll be on our platform. Money or securities or whatever. So, it’s not just like send $20 to my friend. I’m talking about, like, you won’t need a bank account.
The social media company is currently in the process of securing money transmission licenses across the U.S. in order to offer financial services to users. Musk said during the Thursday meeting that he hopes to obtain the additional licenses X requires within “the next few months.”
In addition, Musk 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: “So Paypal is actually a less complete product than what we came up with in July of 2000, so 23 years ago.”
Regarding when the financial features will be available on X, Musk said:
It would blow my mind if we don’t have that rolled out by the end of next year.
The Tesla boss 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.”
Do you think Elon Musk will successfully turn X into a financial platform that everyone will want to use? Let us know in the comments section below.
