📱 X Money: Why Musk is Building His Own Payment System
Elon Musk's X platform has announced a partnership with Visa to launch X Money Account—its own payment ecosystem powered by Visa Direct, a real-time money transfer solution.
With the X digital wallet, users will be able to send money within the system or to external bank accounts, pay for purchases and subscriptions. The project is scheduled to launch by the end of this year.
💡 Musk's Longtime Dream
In 2022, Musk acquired Twitter for $44 billion with the idea of transforming it into X—an "everything app." A year later, the billionaire reaffirmed his vision to turn X into a Western version of China's WeChat, combining messaging, social networking, payments, and other services into one platform.
However, the concept intrigued Musk long before Twitter. In 1999, he founded X.com, a startup designed to be a universal financial platform. A few years later, the startup merged with PayPal, where Musk, as CEO of the combined company, pushed to retain the X brand—but the board rejected the idea. After multiple clashes, Musk was forced out but kept his shares.
In 2002, eBay acquired PayPal for $1.5 billion, and Musk walked away with $165 million, which he used to launch SpaceX and invest in Tesla. Now, decades later, X is on its way to becoming the center of an ecosystem that includes the AI startup xAI and the Starlink satellite internet network. The revenues from X Money could help reduce X's reliance on advertising.
💰 Challenges & Competition
With X's massive potential user base, X Money could become a serious competitor to Apple Pay, Google Pay, Samsung Pay, and even traditional banks.
Despite Musk's well-known interest in cryptocurrencies, there is no indication yet that X Money will support crypto payments. However, Musk may face lengthy negotiations with U.S. regulators if he decides to incorporate crypto.
Nevertheless, X has secured money transfer licenses in 40 U.S. states and the District of Columbia, indicating serious regulatory groundwork.
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