As Bloomberg News reported Sunday (April 26), X Money, an offshoot of social media platform X, is expected to make an early public debut imminently, according to the schedule Musk offered in March.
Early testers of the platform have mentioned perks such as 3% cash back on eligible purchases and a 6% interest rate on cash savings, the report added, noting that this figure is around 15 times the national average.
Musk has argued that payments are key to developing a “super app” similar to the ones popular in China, telling employees in February, “We want it to be such that, if you want to, you could live your life on the X app.”
As covered here earlier this month, X Money is designed to connect to debit cards, support instant funding through Visa Direct and allow users to move money between accounts and wallets without leaving the platform.
The ambition, as Musk put it in prior remarks, is to cover a user’s “entire financial life,” including payments, balances and possibly investment activity.
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“That scope implies X will be a category-blurring construct that blends elements of wallets, neobanks and brokerage interfaces,” PYMNTS wrote. “It also shifts the role of social platforms from influencing transactions to intermediating them.”
If successful, Bloomberg argued, X Money would combine social media and finance in a way not seen in the U.S. before. However, the super app model has not yet taken off in America, and there are several crucial details about X Money that are not clear.
For one, X Money still needs payment licenses in several states such as New York, where lawmakers have questioned whether to trust Musk with people’s money, the report said.
And while the 6% savings rate would exceed those of companies like SoFi and Block, it’s not clear whether that figure is permanent or part of a promotion.
Richard Crone, the founder of Crone Consulting and longtime payments industry watcher, told Bloomberg he is dubious about X Money’s chances.
“He promised this vision more than two years ago, and he said they’d have it within a year,” Crone said. “This may be a day late and a dollar short.”
Assuming the launch succeeds, “the challenge is to demonstrate that a platform built for conversation can also operate as a reliable financial intermediary,” PYMNTS wrote. “That distinction requires clarity around how funds are handled and how users can access their money under all conditions.”
