Musk: Next Year X Users “Won’t Need A Bank Account”

The Verge reports:

Elon Musk wants X to be the center of your financial world, handling anything in your life that deals with money. He expects those features to launch by the end of 2024, he told X employees during an all-hands call on Thursday, saying that people will be surprised with “just how powerful it is.”

“When I say payments, I actually mean someone’s entire financial life,” Musk said, according to audio of the meeting obtained by The Verge. “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.”

Ars Technica reports:

When Musk announced his vision to turn X into an “everything app” where users go to text, call, pay, shop, bank, and post online, financial services experts told Ars that the hurdles Musk would face were “pretty high.”

X would need to earn trust from both users and regulators, with the former already having plenty of banking solutions to choose from and the latter becoming increasingly critical of novel digital payment entities.

Experts predicted that “the choke points of finance might restrict” Musk from achieving his dream of turning X into what he described at a November conference last year as “the most valuable financial institution in the world.”

Elon Musk gives X employees one year to replace your bank https://t.co/xlM3skB6jv

— The Verge (@verge) October 27, 2023