Elon Musk’s X Partners with Visa to Launch X Money

The billionaire’s vision for X as a financial powerhouse is taking shape with the introduction of X Money, starting with a Visa partnership.

Fez – Elon Musk’s social media platform, X, has taken a major step toward launching its own digital payment service, X Money.

On Tuesday, the company announced a partnership with Visa to help power the upcoming service.

This move aligns with Musk’s goal of turning X into an all-in-one app, though the platform will face stiff competition from established players like Venmo.

According to X CEO Linda Yaccarino, Visa will be the first major partner for X Money, which is set to launch later this year.

The service will link to Visa debit cards and allow users to transfer money instantly to their bank accounts according to Forbes.

Visa confirmed in a post on X that U.S. users will be able to send and receive money in real-time using their debit cards.

Yaccarino also hinted at more upcoming announcements about X Money in 2024.

The new payment service will enter a market dominated by Venmo, Cash App, and Zelle, a service backed by seven major US banks, including JPMorgan Chase and Bank of America.

While details about how X Money will stand out remain unclear, CNBC reported that content creators on X will have the option to store their earnings directly on the platform instead of a traditional bank.

Yaccarino described the Visa partnership as an important step in Musk’s vision to turn X into an all-encompassing digital hub.

Since acquiring Twitter in 2022, Musk has been working to expand its capabilities beyond social media.

In an interview last year, according to Forbes, Musk suggested X could become the world’s largest financial institution.

He described plans for X Money to offer easy, one-click transactions and accounts that earn interest.

Despite Musk’s ambitions, X faces a tough road ahead in the payments industry. Research from eMarketer predicts that by 2025, Zelle will have 97 million US users, while Venmo and Cash App will have 76 million and 55 million, respectively. In comparison, X has about 55 million US users, according to Edison Research.

Even if many of those users adopt X Money, it would still lag behind its competitors in terms of market reach.

The upcoming launch of X Money is part of Musk’s broader effort to keep users engaged on X. His AI startup, xAI, has already integrated the Grok AI chatbot into the platform.

One key detail remains unclear: whether X Money will charge fees for instant transfers. Venmo and Cash App both take a percentage of instant transfers, while Zelle, which operates through banks, does not.

This isn’t Musk’s first experience in the digital payments world. He was one of the co-founders of X.com, an online banking startup that later became PayPal.

That venture made him part of the famous “PayPal Mafia,” a group of early PayPal executives that included billionaire investor Peter Thiel and David Sacks, who now advises former President Donald Trump on AI and cryptocurrency issues.

In similar news, Jack Dorsey, the original co-founder of Twitter (X), now runs Block, the company behind Cash App.

With Visa on board, X Money is taking a crucial first step. But whether it can compete with established digital payment giants remains to be seen.