Last year, X announced a partnership with Visa aimed at creating some sort of personal finance ecosystem within the X app. Last month, it was easy to miss Musk claiming that this payment and banking platform within X, apparently called “X Money,” was slated for some form of limited public release in the month of April.
As I write this, it’s April 26.
As Bloomberg pointed out on Sunday, that timeline theoretically means the release of some kind of X-based personal finance function is coming in a matter of days.
Whether or not to take Elon Musk at his word on a release timeline is your choice, of course, but Bloomberg says people have been testing the service, and say it has “competitive perks,” such as 3% cash back on certain transactions, and apparently a savings account option offering 6% interest, which Bloomberg calculates to be 15 times the average savings account interest rate in the U.S.
Other details about the service apparently include an X-branded metal debit card emblazoned with the user’s @ handle, account activity tracking from an xAI-made “AI concierge,” and free transfers of funds from peer-to-peer.
In some circles, “X, the everything app” has become a sarcastic way of referring to the social ecosystem within Elon Musk’s app, usually when some hideous trend is birthed there. But it’s easy to forget that it comes from something Musk actually tweeted in July of 2023 (the year after he bought Twitter).
“Twitter was acquired by X Corp both to ensure freedom of speech and as an accelerant for X, the everything app,” Musk wrote. Adding, “In the months to come, we will add comprehensive communications and the ability to conduct your entire financial world.”
He also said we “must bid adieu to the bird” in that same post, and for what it’s worth that was a promise kept.
Bloomberg notes that a financial app of this sort must be authorized in all 50 states, which has reportedly been slowing things down for X Money.
Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren sent a letter to Musk earlier this month asking a long list of questions about X’s plans related to consumer protection within the X Money feature. The letter hints at the possibility of future regulatory scrutiny, particularly under a less Musk-friendly presidential administration.
