Elon Musk wants X to replace users’ bank accounts within a year

Elon Musk wants X to manage users’ “entire financial life” so that they “won’t need a bank account” by the end of next year. Musk has long boasted about his plans to move X (formerly Twitter) beyond its microblogging beginnings into an app that does everything, including an array of financial services. At an all hands call with employees this week, audio of which was obtained by the Verge, Musk said: “When I say payments, I actually mean someone’s entire financial life.” “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.” With X currently applying for money transmission licenses across the US, Musk and CEO Linda Yaccarino are aiming to have a host of financial features available by the end of 2024. “It would blow my mind if we don’t have that rolled out by the end of next year,” Musk told staffers. Twitter has previously nibbled around the edges of financial services, adding a tipping feature for users to reward creators on the platform and enabling people to charge subscription fees for exclusive content, like newsletters. However, Musk is determined to go further, fulfilling his vison for the original X.com, which he founded a quarter of a century ago. “The X/PayPal product roadmap was written by myself and David Sacks actually in July of 2000,” Musk said on this week’s call. “And for some reason PayPal, once it became eBay, not only did they not implement the rest of the list, but they actually rolled back a bunch of key features, which is crazy. So PayPal is actually a less complete product than what we came up with in July of 2000, so 23 years ago.”