Well, Elon Musk’s Project X may not be going smoothly right now, but we’re still in the early stages of the “all-purpose app” plan and we haven’t even gotten to the payments part yet. Right?
Well, it looks like that’s coming soon. New discoveries in the app’s backend code (via Follow).
Yes, X is building its upcoming payments UI, a key part of Elon Musk’s grand vision for how the app will ultimately grow.
To recap, in 2000, Musk and then-colleague David Sachs hatched plans for an app that would facilitate not just payments, but any form of financial transaction online. Musk and Sachs, who worked together on the product that would later become PayPal, submitted a proposal to PayPal management under the name “x.com,” but the broader concept was ultimately abandoned in favor of the more focused PayPal product.
Though Musk and Sachs eventually left the company, they’ve kept that vision alive ever since, and Musk wants to carry it over to his new X project, upholding the principles of free speech and executing on the original plan. This goes beyond just payment, and in Musk’s view, They offer high-yield accounts, debit cards, checking, loan services and more.
Musk hopes to revolutionize financial trading by enabling instant transactions at low cost or no fees, and in-stream payments are the first step.
But despite the UI indicators in the code, X still has a ways to go before it can make that happen.
The company has received money transmission licenses in 31 US states, which is the first step in launching the service. Of course, this means that the company is still waiting on approval in another 20 states, but it’s also worth noting that as of January this year, X had only been approved in 15 states, meaning that X is expected to receive full approval by the end of the year, paving the way for the app to offer in-stream payments to US users first.
From there, the platform Payment processor licensesThis is necessary if X wants to promote shopping directly within their stream. Of course, this only pertains to the US market, with a similar application process required in each region where XPayments operates.
The application process is taking longer than Elon himself expected, likely delaying launch plans: Last October, Musk told X staff that he would be “surprised if[payments]don’t start happening by the end of 2024.”
In theory that could still happen, but with only four and a half months left, it seems likely that X will be pressured to enable in-stream payments and make it easier to transfer money within the app.
And it also depends on whether people actually use that option.
Because while X may be able to facilitate payments at some stage, there is an entirely separate question of whether people will actually trust Elon and co. to deposit their money with them, and ensure that payments are transferred safely and securely over X.
There’s also the question of practicality: why would people actually want to pay X when there are plenty of similar established options already on the market?
Musk’s view is that ideally offering fee-free transactions is the key to getting people on board, and once people are sending money within the app, in-stream purchases and other financial services will naturally roll out using the money already moving through X’s circuits.
But it’s unclear whether users will be so open to such a thing. While fee-free transactions may be attractive, it will have much greater appeal in markets outside the U.S., where remittances are a much larger component of regular trading activity.
And that expansion could be a much bigger challenge for X to achieve.
Musk regularly scolds foreign leaders and criticizes their actions and policies on various fronts, so it is unlikely that they would fully agree with the possibility of X becoming a player in their country’s financial sector.
As such, we don’t expect XPayments to be rolled out as smoothly as Musk hopes.
But that’s the next step, and first and foremost, X needs to execute payments within the United States.
Based on this new UI image, that’s steadily approaching.
