More than three years after acquiring Twitter and rebranding it into X, Elon Musk now claims he is close to realising his long-promised vision of turning the platform into an “everything app”. Part of that plan involves the public launch of a new financial services tool later this month.
Dubbed X Money, the new feature brings banking and payments directly into the X platform. Bloomberg reports that the company will roll out early public access soon, following the timeline shared by Musk last month.
Early testers have highlighted several notable perks, including 3% cashback on eligible purchases and a 6% interest rate on savings. The publication adds that this rate is roughly 15 times higher than the US national average.
Moreover, sources familiar with the matter say the service will include free peer-to-peer transfers and a metal Visa debit card personalised with users’ X handles. It will also reportedly feature an AI concierge built by xAI to track spending and sort past transactions.
Currently, the billionaire sees payment as a necessary step to creating super apps, similar to China’s WeChat. The X owner told his employees back in February that “if you want to, you could live your life on the X app.”
Handling finances isn’t particularly new for Musk. If you may recall, he first gained notoriety in Silicon Valley by co-founding PayPal Holdings Inc., so he should have some idea to handle users’ money.
Impacts And Hurdles
Bloomberg notes that, if successful, the system would “sit at the intersection of social media and finance in a way no American product has attempted at this scale”. That said, X Money has yet to launch in the US. The publication adds that several key details about the service remain unclear, including its pricing, full feature set, and wider release timeline.
Furthermore, it doesn’t help that Musk is largely known for creating bold promises and then failing to deliver in time. Currently, Musk is dealing with some regulatory obstacles. X Money has yet to secure payment licences in several states, including New York, where lawmakers have openly questioned whether Elon Musk should be trusted with users’ funds.
Not only that but there are also some growing concerns regarding the service’s perks. Though X Money’s 6% savings rate is enticing, the company did not mention if this rate is permanent or promotional. Moreover, when pressed for questions, an X representative did not provide a comment.
Richard Crone, founder of Crone Consulting LLC and a long-time payments industry watcher, remains sceptical of X Money’s prospects. “He promised this vision more than two years ago and said they would deliver it within a year,” Crone noted. “This may be a day late and a dollar short.”
Not Your Conventional Bank
As mentioned earlier, some users already use X Money to carry out transactions. Because the service integrates directly into a social media platform, early testers say they send money to other users through the app’s chat feature or directly from their profiles.
This built-in functionality could help push the service into the mainstream, especially since X reportedly has around 600 million monthly users. The company also plans to migrate creators who currently receive payouts through Stripe to X Money, effectively giving the service a ready-made base of active accounts. That said, we still don’t know what will happen to a user’s X Money account in the event their X profile gets hit with a ban hammer.
While peer-to-peer payments remain popular for everyday use, they often act as a loss leader for companies that offer them, said Harshita Rawat, senior research analyst at Bernstein Institutional Services LLC. The real value, she added, comes when users start doing more of their banking on the same platform, including credit purchases and loans.
“Becoming the primary bank account is hard,” Rawat said. “I’m not saying it cannot be done, but I think you need to figure out an angle for that.” Of course, industry experts say that there are a lot more problems just below the surface.
Regulatory Limbo
Bloomberg reports that payments industry veterans say X still lacks the infrastructure needed to make in-app purchases frictionless, a key requirement for any platform aiming to support real commerce. Richard Crone said, “He doesn’t have a one-click buy, and he needs that or e-commerce on his site will lag.”
It is also worth noting that Elon Musk has repeatedly missed his deadlines due to some regulatory roadblocks. Back in 2023, he said he expected to secure the necessary licences across all 50 US states within a few months. At the time of writing, however, X has obtained licences in only 44 states and will likely not operate in states where it does not hold approval.
In a letter last year, then-New York state senator Brad Hoylman-Sigal and assembly member Micah Lasher urged the state’s Department of Financial Services to reject Elon Musk’s application. They cited what they described as his “pattern of reckless conduct, in both business and government, that has put consumers at risk”, including his involvement in dismantling the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau while leading the Department of Government Efficiency.
Documents and emails obtained by Bloomberg show that state regulators also pressed X for detailed explanations of its business model and security features. In at least one instance, regulators raised concerns about Musk’s early decisions at X, where he cut a large portion of staff, including teams working on safety initiatives.
In Texas, a payments regulator sought input from other states while reviewing the company’s application in June 2024, saying he had “a few concerns” about X’s submission, according to the emails. The regulator specifically flagged “Mr. Musk’s troubled history with the SEC” and the “financial condition of X Payments LLC’s parent company, X Corp.” Though Texas did approve X’s application three months later.
Earlier in April, Massachusetts senator Elizabeth Warren sent a letter to Elon Musk raising questions about X Money’s yield structure, banking arrangements, and its broader potential impact on the financial system. She said, “Your failure to operate X in a safe and responsible manner does not breed confidence in your ability to safely expand into consumer finance.” At the time of writing, X still awaits a payment licence in Massachusetts.
Malaysian Launch?
That said, there are no signs that X Money will expand beyond the US anytime soon, let alone enter Malaysia. If it does make its way here, it will likely face a fairly strict regulatory framework.
The first hurdle involves licensing from Bank Negara (BNM). X Money would need approval to operate under Malaysia’s Financial Services Act, as it cannot process or hold customer funds locally without the proper licence.
BNM also enforces strict technology risk management standards for payment providers, including cybersecurity controls and system resilience requirements. X Money would need to demonstrate that it can securely handle financial data at scale.
On top of that, if the service operates like an e-wallet or payment app, it would fall under additional rules covering capital requirements, governance, and operational safeguards. These include keeping customer funds in trust accounts, maintaining minimum capital buffers, and complying with ongoing reporting obligations set by BNM.
(Source: Bloomberg, via The Edge Malaysia)
