Elon Musk expands X Money after delay, moving closer to his 'everything app' vision

After months of delay, Elon Musk has begun expanding access to X Money, the payments platform embedded within X, bringing the company a step closer to its ambition of becoming an "everything app."The service is now being rolled out to a broader group of premium users in the United States, according to X Money head Dhruv Batura, who said the company will use the phased rollout to gather user feedback and address technical issues before a wider launch.The launch marks a significant milestone in Musk's effort to transform X from a social media platform into a destination for messaging, payments, commerce and financial services. Since acquiring Twitter in 2022, Musk has repeatedly described payments as a foundational pillar of that strategy, drawing on his experience as a co-founder of PayPal.X Money is designed to let users send money to friends and businesses, hold balances within the platform and eventually carry out many of the functions traditionally associated with a bank account. Musk has previously said he wants users to be able to "live their life" inside the X app, without needing to switch between multiple services.The rollout comes later than originally planned. Musk had indicated earlier this year that the service would enter early public access in April after a limited internal beta. The company has since adopted a more measured approach, expanding availability gradually as it refines the product.Early testers have reported features including peer-to-peer payments, cashback on eligible purchases and interest on cash balances, though X has yet to announce a full feature set for the broader launch.Payments have become an increasingly important part of X's long-term business model as the platform seeks to diversify beyond advertising and subscriptions. The company has already partnered with Visa to power payment infrastructure for X Money and has secured money-transmitter licences across much of the United States, laying the regulatory groundwork for a broader financial services offering.The rollout also comes during a period of broader transformation across Musk's business empire. Earlier this month, SpaceX completed its public listing, while Musk continues to position artificial intelligence, payments and digital infrastructure as interconnected pillars of his long-term strategy.For X, the expansion of X Money is more than the launch of another feature. It is one of the clearest signs yet that Musk is attempting to reshape the platform into a digital ecosystem where social networking, commerce and financial services increasingly converge.Read more: X faces widespread outage as user reports cross 31,000 on DowndetectorRead: X launches ‘react with video’ feature to let users post video responses