• by Colin Kirkland , Yesterday

X Money -- a key piece of Elon Musk’s “everything app” goals for his platform, X -- may be planning to expand beyond digital payments. This week, app intelligence firm App Sensa discovered new strings of code in X that hint at debit card functionality.

Along with “Virtual Card,” dozens of lines of X code reference a “Physical Card,” with likely user commands, such as “Get my card,” “Ship a placement card,” “Your card is ready to use,” and “Lock card.”

The code also mentions usernames, meaning that card holders may be able to customize their debit cards with their X usernames. 

The news comes months after X CEO Linda Yaccarino first announced the social media platform’s in-app payments product name –--“X Money” -- while announcing a partnership between X and Visa.

At the time, Yaccarino said Visa would help maintain secure and instant funding of user’s “X Wallets” via Visa Direct, the company’s real-time money-transfer solution. 

Other lines of code refer to other potential payment partners, including Amex and Mastercard, suggesting in-app payment offerings from a handful of providers.  

In 2023, Musk, who co-founded PayPal, began securing licenses in the U.S. to certify this functionality, including X users’ ability to connect their debit cards for peer-to-peer payments, similar to Zelle or Venmo. Since then, X has registered for licenses in 40 states, plus Washington D.C. 

Missing from this list, however, is New York -- which, Musk said last year would be a key state for the platform’s initial payments push.

But Musk promptly withdrew the company’s application for a license after a legal filing was made against the platform for allegedly disclosing confidential user data to the Saudi Arabian government and Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman’s investments in X. 

Yaccarino told consumers back in January to expect major announcements regarding X Money, which was originally slated to launch at the end of last year, but has since been pushed back to sometime in 2025.  

In addition to X Money, the social-media company recently announced plans to launch new functionality for its private messaging feature, “XChat,” which Musk says involves “Bitcoin style encryption” and will support in-app audio and video calls.

These plans to integrate a payments system and encrypted messaging into X marks Musk’s overarching goal of building an “everything app” -- a concept derived from China’s highly successful app WeChat, which billions of people use to grocery shop, text, video conference, play video games, follow the news, and make digital payments.