The news: Early public access to X Money will launch next month, per an X post from Elon Musk.

How we got here: X Money’s launch date has been long in the making. Announced in 2023, X Money’s debut has been stalled for years.

• Musk originally set a staff goal for a 2024 launch.
• In 2025, then-CEO Linda Yaccarino announced X Money would launch by year's end during a speech at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES).

This month, William Shatner received early access to X Money, and with Musk’s support, auctioned off 42 invites to beta-test the payment app—suggesting a fully functional app is here.

What we can anticipate: Shatner shared screenshots of the app interface on X, revealing competitive 6% APY on deposits through Cross River Bank. 

P2P payments through X Wallet will be facilitated by Visa, which could inject more trust into the app through an incumbent’s support.

What’s noticeably missing: Crypto and trading. 

While X planned to let users directly trade stocks and cryptocurrencies in the X Money app, the feature was not visible within Shatner’s screenshots, which could mean those features are delayed—or that trading will exist outside of X Money.

X Money has also failed to secure all 50 state money transmitter licenses, with only 40 states and the District of Columbia onboarded. This could kneecap users’ ability to send payments in certain states, and likely reduces X Money’s draw as a P2P provider when other apps offer uninterrupted service. (However, if Visa is facilitating X’s payments, X may not need its own licenses.) 

Will it work? X also has the uphill battle of convincing users to treat that app as a superapp like WeChat. 

Since Musk’s $44 billion acquisition of Twitter in October 2022, the app has been riddled with scandals ranging from the proliferation of antisemitic and transphobic hate speech to a data breach that resulted in 235 million email addresses being posted online. This level of volatility will likely deter users from treating X as their central financial hub when incumbents and fintechs alike offer stability.

Implications for payment providers: To encourage trust in their financial products with younger consumers, payment providers should improve their mobile payment experience. 

Seventy percent of digital banking users believe that the quality of a provider's digital experience directly correlates to how much that institution cares about their customers, per Alkami. This attention to UX can help incumbents and fintechs alike retain Gen Z consumers, who are most likely to try a payment app like X Money.

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