Musk banks on turning X into a financial platform

afr.com:

Elon Musk’s takeover of Twitter (now known as X) has taken an intriguing twist. The serial entrepreneur plans to add a suite of banking products to the social network next year, as he attempts to build a US “super app” with financial services as its core.

After his disruption of the automotive and space industries, bankers are on notice that Musk has them in his sights – just like former Twitter boss Jack Dorsey, who has spent years building a banking app in the form of Block’s Cash App.

In a briefing with X staff last Thursday, leaked to US tech publication The Verge, Musk said X had applied for various money transmission licences in the United States to allow it to send payments.

Elon Musk wants to turn X into a super app with financial services at its core. AP

He’s also keen for X to offer an interest-bearing money market account, debit cards and loans. Indeed, he said he wants the platform – which he bought for $US44 billion last year and which has more than 300 million active users – to serve “someone’s entire financial life”.

“If it involves money, it’ll be on our platform,” Musk told his workers last week. “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…. It would blow my mind if we don’t have that rolled out by the end of next year.”

Bravado aside, the comments explain why Musk rebranded Twitter to X in July – X.com was an early online bank he created around the turn of the millennium, which eventually became PayPal. Before he built Tesla and SpaceX, Musk’s target was the lack of innovation in US banks. Twenty years later, he still sniffs an opportunity.

Block head Jack Dorsey’s relationship with Elon Musk appears to have