UX taps William Shatner to issue invitations for his payment service, X Money
The standalone X Chat app isn’t the only new service X is testing this week. The company has also started offering some users invitations to its X Money payment service, which has been being tested internally among X employees. These invitations, however, were not made in the usual way. Instead, X owner Elon Musk worked with William Shatner (yes, the actor) to invite people to the beta in exchange for a $1,000 donation to Shatner’s charity that supports children’s and veterans organizations.
On X, the “Star Trek” actor has been sharing information about the X Money service and its beta invites, which were made available for online auction on Monday. Musk retweeted one of Shatner’s posts on his feed, “X Money.” Musk retweeted another user’s post about X Money, adding, “This is going to be huge.”
The auction, Shatner noted, was done with Musk’s blessing after Shatner received payment from Musk through the X Money app. (A screenshot showed Musk sending him $42, a playful sci-fi reference: The number is in Douglas Adams’ “The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy,” a condensed answer to the purpose of life.)
UX also gave 42 invites to the X Money beta to those who donated to the auction.
After receiving the notification, the auction winners will be able to see the X Money service link appear in the app, just below the Premium link. They will also be among the first to receive an X Money metal debit card with their username from X’s partner, Visa, which powers the service’s person-to-person payment feature.
The addition of X Money to X is part of Musk’s plan to make the social network an “everything app,” offering a variety of features, including private messaging, payments, creator content, subscriptions, video, and more.
Screenshots posted by Shatner on X showed the X Money interface with three tabs: Account, Rewards, and Activity, as well as buttons to make deposits, send money, and make requests. Users also have the option to set up direct deposit to earn APY, screenshots showed. (One screen showed an option to earn up to 6.00% APY.)
User deposits are held by Cross River Bank, Member FDIC, and insured up to $250,000 per person, per a screenshot posted by Shatner.
IX Payments itself is not an FDIC-insured bank, but it has been scrambling for remittance licenses across the US X now has licenses in more than 40 US states, and, at X’s public all-hands meeting in February, Musk told employees that the service will enter a limited external beta in a month or two, before going global to all users.
With X Chat, the company hasn’t just launched a new link within X but is exploring offering a messaging service its own standalone app. Presumably, X Money could have its own program and better compete with others in the space, such as Venmo, PayPal, and Cash App.
Musk’s interest in payments has spanned decades, since he founded an online financial service called X.com in 1999, which was later merged with the company that became PayPal. After acquiring Twitter in October 2022, Musk renamed the company X less than a year later, due to his first startup.
