• by Colin Kirkland , Yesterday

Marking a new chapter in the evolution of his “everything app” vision, Elon Musk's social-media platform X has begun running new tests of X Chat and X Money, two stand-alone apps directly developed by X owner xAI.

On Tuesday, X Chat began beta testing on iOS devices through Apple's "TestFlight" testing platform, introducing up to 5,000 initial users to the X-operated private messaging service designed to offer encrypted DMs and file-sharing similar to apps like Telegram, Signal, and Meta's Facebook Messenger and WhatsApp platforms.

“For the past few months, we've been quietly building a standalone X Chat app for iOS,” xAI product designer Michael Boswell wrote on X. “Use it. Break it. We want your feedback.”

The app technically operates as an entity separate from the X platform, which alters Musk's original mentions of a singular super app, or everything app similar to China's WeChat platform.

However, Boswell stated that X Chat will eventually be linked to users’ X account activity, and soon include additional features such as voice messages, calling functionality, verified user badges and more.

In addition to X Chat's iOS test, X announced on Wednesday that it has begun testing its X Money payments service with a handful of users.

Originally expected to launch at the end of 2024, X Money testers are being invited by William Shatner in exchange for a $1,000 donation to the actor's charity supporting children's and veterans' organizations in a recent auction.

A total of 42 auction donors were issued invitation links to the payments app and were told they would receive a metal X Money debit card in agreement with Visa, the app's official banking partner responsible for running peer-to-peer transactions.

Shatner shared screenshots to X highlighting X Money's interface, organized with Account, Rewards, and Activity tabs.

The stand-alone app includes options to send money and make deposits as well with Cross River Bank, Member FDIC, holding user deposits insured up to $250,000 per individual.

Musk, who co-founded PayPal, began securing licenses in the U.S. to certify debit-card functionality in 2023 and also has licenses in over 40 U.S. states allowing money transfers similar to the kind of transactions made on Zelle or Venmo.

Depending on capability and adoption, developing the X umbrella into a multipurpose app ecosystem could potentially help the platform stand out and compete against Meta’s Threads app, which could soon surpass X in users and revenue.