Elon Musk wants your entire financial life on X by 2024
arstechnica.com
arstechnica.com
Does anyone want payment app integrated with messaging app? Meta tried with Facebook and WhatsApp and while people use it, it didn't take over. Those are private messaging, I can't see using it with public messaging like X/Twitter. Nobody I would send money is on X/Twitter.
I think WeChat style payments won't work in the US for commerce since the credit card infrastructure is too widespread. Every food cart has a Square terminal. I have used Venmo and QR code for purchases and it is worse than tapping phone.
Another data point: Facebook, a social network where I think connections are more grounded in real world relationships than Twitter, has supported payments for years. Still, it hasn't boxed out the entrenched players in payments.
Oh how the turn tables! We are going to get “new WeChat”.
Meta is better positioned to do this. Is Whatsapp not already used more extensively outside of the US as an everything style app? Anyways, I’m not going to put money and use a shitty app with no customer service.
We have existing options and don’t need a centralized app. China likes control and centralization so WeChat is a picked winner. X is not going to get picked and elevated by the US government.
I'm sure this time is the time. Boy who cried wolf and all that..
> On an earnings call yesterday, Musk told X employees that he predicts X's payments system will launch by the end of 2024, The Verge reported.
Whatever. Lots of pixels will be spilled because, you know, Musk.
“It would blow my mind if we don’t have that rolled out by the end of next year,” Musk said, confirming that “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.”
If you want to nitpick you could quibble with conflating "by 2024" and "by the end of 2024"
> X.com was an American online bank founded by Elon Musk, Harris Fricker, Christopher Payne, and Ed Ho in 1999 in Palo Alto, California. In 2000, it merged with competitor Confinity and in 2001, the merged company changed its name to PayPal.
Musk was made CEO because between the two companies, he had the largest holdings.
He spent a lot of his time as CEO from March 2000 stubbornly trying to insist that this prototype (written in Java on Solaris) be completely thrown away and rewritten in ASP on Windows because he knew the latter and not the former. So much time, in fact, that by September 2000 the board had had enough and kicked him out as CEO.
When people like to talk about Musk and PayPal (not saying you are), it's funny how neglected the fact that it was a whole 5 months from rise to fall.
Note he'd already been forced out as CEO of the pre-merger X once before, too.
> when I say payments, I actually mean someone’s entire financial life. If it involves money, it’ll be on our platform
I suppose "Elon Wants" is the operative portion here. But he doesn't say he wants your life on it by the end of 2024, does he? Where is that in any quote there?
Not according to Musk:
> Musk told X employees that he predicts X's payments system will launch by the end of 2024, The Verge reported.
> Musk said, confirming that “when I say payments, I actually mean someone’s entire financial life. If it involves money, it’ll be on our platform.
So, by his own "confirmation" and the transitive property:
"He predicts X's [entire financial life] system will be launched by end of 2024".
You're right, though, just because it's rolled out doesn't mean users are going to flock to the service, especially with this monumental zinger:
> Musk from forging ahead with his plan to turn X into a bank, a move he said ... would be key to helping the platform avoid bankruptcy.
"Bring your entire financial life to my completely stable, not at all at risk of bankruptcy, bank system".
Really confidence inspiring stuff, there.