Elon Musk is moving ahead with plans to turn the company formerly known as Twitter, now called X, into an “everything app” that includes its own payment system. The company in late November received three additional money transmitter licenses in the US states of South Dakota (on November 27), Kansas (on November 28) and Wyoming (on November 30), bringing the total number of states in which the company to participate in money transfers in 12.
The other states where the company was previously licensed as a money transmitter include Arizona, Georgia, Iowa, Maryland, Michigan, Mississippi, Missouri, New Hampshire and Rhode Island. All states were licensed this year, starting with New Hampshire on June 29.
Arizona, Michigan and Missouri were added in July, followed by Georgia, Maryland and Rhode Island in August, and Iowa and Mississippi in September. The registrations relate to a business called “X Payments LLC”, formerly “Twitter Payments LLC”, which will perform the money transfer operations on X. (The name of the license may vary, but all will allow X to process payments or to move money to the state.)
Musk confirmed the additions a post on Xin answer in an article by The road which marked the addition of South Dakota on November 27. The Street report said the company was registered in only 10 states, according to the Nationwide Multistate Licensing System database. Now, the database also shows the most recent additions.
Image Credits: Screenshot of the NMLS database
“Progress,” was Musk’s only comment on the new registrations.
However, Musk has previously spoken about his plans to transform X into a payments platform, having previously outlined his vision for the company’s future shortly after the acquisition. He described Twitter, now X, as a place where users could send money to others on the platform and withdraw their money to certified bank accounts, and perhaps later, a high-yield money market account that would encourage people to keep their cash into their accounts with X. That plan would put X in competition with PayPal, a company Musk is credited with co-founding through its merger with his X.com. With Twitter, Musk hopes to re-fulfill the vision he had for X.com as a disruptor of the existing banking system. Whether this move will also include crypto is yet to be determined, but it’s worth noting that a money transmitter license would be required if X were to support cryptocurrencies.
The payments are also tied to X’s broader transition to the creator economy, where X users with at least 500 followers and 5 million organic impressions on their posts in the last three months can become eligible for ad revenue sharing.
Of course, X’s ability to generate ad revenue has waned in recent days, with an exodus of advertisers prompted by Musk’s approval of an anti-Semitic post on the platform and reports that brand campaigns were appearing alongside hate speech. As a result, X has lost several major advertisers, including Apple, Disney, IBM, Paramount, Warner Bros., Lionsgate, Comcast/NBCU, Walmart and others. The company also lost a deal with Paris Hilton’s 11:11 Media, which would have seen the celeb launch live audio, live video and live shopping on X. Musk I broke out at the Hilton after the deal went south, but the walkouts could spell trouble for X’s monetization plans and, therefore, the creator’s financial and payout ambitions.
The company said it will focus on small business advertisers in the near future and also plans to make Musk’s new AI, Grok, available to paid X subscribers as another source of revenue.
