Elon Musk Plans X To Become A User Financial Center

Elon Musk wants to make platform X the center of the financial world for users, which manages all aspects of their finances. He hopes the features will roll out until the end of 2024, as he told employees X in an internal announcement on Thursday, October 26. He said people would be surprised by the platform's "how strong".

"When I say payment, I actually talk about a person's entire financial life," Musk said, according to the audio recording of the meeting. "If it involves money. It will be on our platform. Money or securities or whatever. So, not just sending 20 US dollars to my friend. I'm talking about, like, you won't need a bank account."

CEO X, Linda Yaccarino, said the company sees this as a "full opportunity" in 2024. "It would surprise me if we didn't launch it at the end of next year," Musk said, quoted by VOI from The Verge.

Currently, the company is working hard to obtain a license for remittances across the United States in order to offer financial services. Musk told employees on Thursday that he hopes to get the license needed by X in "a few months to come."

Previously, Musk had discussed his plans to turn X into a financial hub. In fact, he has changed his Twitter name after his dot-com-boom era online bank, X.com, which eventually became part of PayPal. Musk previously also said that the platform would offer high-interesting money market accounts, debit cards, checks, and loan services, with the aim of allowing users to "send money anywhere in the world instantly and in real-time."

The original plan for X.com is clearly in Musk's mind. "The product road map X/PayPal was written by me and David Sacks actually in July 2000," Musk said in an internal meeting X last Thursday. "And somehow PayPal, once it became eBay, not only did it not carry out the rest of the list, but they even revoked some key features, which was crazy. So PayPal is actually an incomplete product compared to what we designed in July 2000, 23 years ago."

Turning X into a financial service center that is directly connected to Musk's goal of making this platform an "application of everything," similar to super apps like WeChat in China that offer access to shopping, transportation, and more.

However, Musk faces a huge challenge to achieving his goals. One of them, he has to convince people why they need such a platform. In addition, it also gains their trust in entrusting X with their entire financial life. This will be a very difficult challenge for X.