FinTech: Elon Musk wants X to replace consumers’ bank accounts by end of 2024

*Elon Musk, Chief Executive Officer of X, restates his desire to have the microblogging site manage users’ ‘entire financial life’ as the platform currently, is applying for money transmission licences across the United States, says report

Gbenga Kayode |  ConsumerConnect

Elon Musk, American billionaire businessman and Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of X Corporation has restated his plan to enable X to manage users’ “entire financial life” so that they “won’t need a bank account” by the end of 2024.

Musk has long boasted about his plans to move X (formerly Twitter) beyond its microblogging beginnings into an app that does “everything”, including an array of financial services for its users, according to report.

X proposal designed to manage consumers’ ‘entire financial life’ -Musk

The Chief Executive of the leading social media platform, at an all-hands call with employees earlier this week, audio of which was obtained by the Verge, said: “When I say payments, I actually mean someone’s entire financial life.

“If it involves money. It’ll be on our platform. 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.”

With X currently applying for money transmission licences across the United States (US), Musk and CEO Linda Yaccarino are aiming to have a host of financial features available by the end of 2024, report noted.

Musk also told X staffers: “It would blow my mind if we don’t have that rolled out by the end of next year.”

Twitter has previously nibbled around the edges of financial services, adding a tipping feature for users to reward creators on the platform and enabling people to charge subscription fees for exclusive content, like newsletters.

However, Musk is determined to go further, fulfilling his vision for the original X.com, which he founded a quarter of a century ago.

He further stated during the week’s call: “The X/PayPal product roadmap was written by myself and David Sacks actually in July of 2000.

“And for some reason PayPal, once it became eBay, not only did they not implement the rest of the list, but they actually rolled back a bunch of key features, which is crazy.

“So, PayPal is actually a less complete product than what we came up with in July of 2000, so 23 years ago.”