Elon Musk is advancing his vision of transforming X into a comprehensive “everything app” with its proprietary payment system.
In late November, the company acquired three more money transmitter licenses in South Dakota, Kansas and Wyoming, bringing the total authorized states for money transfers to 12.
This adds to licenses secured in Arizona, Georgia, Iowa, Maryland, Michigan, Mississippi, Missouri, New Hampshire and Rhode Island earlier in the year.
X Payments LLC, formerly Twitter Payments LLC, manages these licenses and oversees money transfer operations.
Mr Musk confirmed the recent licensing acquisitions in a post on X, expressing “progress.”
While he previously outlined plans for X to become a payment platform, enabling users to transfer money, withdraw funds and potentially invest, challenges have emerged. The platform faces competition with PayPal, co-founded by Musk through a merger with X.com.
“The billionaire entrepreneur aims to disrupt the banking system, but uncertainties remain regarding cryptocurrency integration, which requires a money transmitter license.”
Payments are vital for X’s expansion into the creator economy, offering ad revenue sharing to users with at least 500 followers and 5 million organic impressions.
However, X’s ad monetization efforts have faced setbacks due to Mr Musk’s endorsement of controversial content, leading to the loss of major advertisers.
“Musk’s response to the fallout, particularly with Paris Hilton’s 11:11 Media deal, poses challenges for X’s monetization plans and ambitions in the creator economy and payments,” according to recent media reports.
The company plans to focus on small business advertisers and introduce Musk’s new AI, Grok, to paid subscribers as an additional revenue source.